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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whom does Cleopatra say she and her companions shall make proud to take them?

2. Of whom does Cleopatra report dreaming in Act 5, Scene 2?

3. Who accompanies Antony in Act 4, Scene 10?

4. What decision does Antony lament to the solider who greets him in the fifth scene of the fourth act?

5. Whom does Caesar send to speak to Cleopatra after hearing of Antony's death?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is indicated by Cleopatra's refusal to come down to Antony in Act 4, Scene 15?

2. How does Antony behave towards his servants before the battle at Alexandria?

3. How does Caesar gain an advantage by holding his land forces still?

4. What is revealed by Antony's immediate blame of Cleopatra for the surrender of his fleet?

5. What happens to Enobarbus after his speech in Act 4, Scene 9?

6. What is revealed about the Roman attitude towards death in Act 4, Scene 14?

7. How does the news of Cleopatra's death affect Antony's actions?

8. Why does Enobarbus say he will seek out a ditch in which he may die?

9. What effect on Antony's disposition does the desertion by Enobarbus have?

10. To what end does Cleopatra commit herself, and why, after Antony has died?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

A seldom explicitly mentioned theme throughout the play is the fidelity and infidelity of minor characters despite maltreatment and disregard for their more fundamental rights. Thoughtfully explicate this theme in a well-developed essay. How do the various minor characters demonstrate their fidelity and to whom? For what reasons do the characters evidently remain loyal? Contrariwise, which characters forsake their obligations to fidelity, and for what reasons are they motivated to do so? What do these various relationships of disparate levels of fidelity indicate about the fundamental human tendencies regarding loyalty?

Essay Topic 2

In the third act of the play, the fortunes of the two sides of the external conflict are reversed by the machinations of free will. Examine in a thoroughly-developed analytical essay this reversal of fortune. How had the fortunes of Antony and his companions been positively progressing throughout the first few acts of the play? In what way do they regress in the second half? How is this affected in the third act of the play? What particular actions, and of whom, are responsible for the inception of the downfall of the triumvir Antony and in what do they consist?

Essay Topic 3

An essential element of the tragic play is the evocation of pity from the audience. In order to evoke pity, the audience must be enabled to relate with the characters caught up in the tragedy. In a broad-minded and considerate essay, analyze the means by which the play makes those involved in the tragedy, principally Antony and Cleopatra, but also Enobarbus and Eros, as well as any others caught in the struggles between mightier characters, sympathetic to the audience or reader. What scenes demonstrate the unfortunate nature of these characters' sufferings? How do they portray the characters as pitiable? What is the fundamental root of relation between the audience and the pitiable characters in these scenes? What does this reveal about dramatic tragedy and its relationship to human nature?

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