No Subject

[Johnny]

well, yes and no. all of the characters were real, but shakespeare changed them a lot, to make Antony a good guy and Octavius to be a political master. Antony in rl was much like Caesar, and he took advantage of the assassination of Julius Casesar to further his own political career against Brutus.

[Unregistered]

Anthony and Cleo are part of history but the play is not history so to speak it is a figment of Shake's imagination, he knew his history, he changed it..to make money. Shakespeare was not just a good dramatist he was a good business man.

[Esh]

Yes it was a work of historical fiction, but the characters did exist. Certainly Shakespere culd not have been there himself to take down everything that they were saying or doing. As i would put it...Shakespere wrote his plays for a thinking audience.

[Tina]

Antony and Cleopatra were two very real individuals. They really did have an affair, in fact they actually had children together. And , yes, they both tragically died. However, Shakespeare ingeniusly kept true to history, while adding a little flourish to shock audiences. Cleopatra, in Shake.'s time, was probably seen like nothing more than a gypsy. But Shakes was able to introduce a whole new idea, by showing her off as a skilled speaker, an independent woman with power(instead of a mother), and a comedian. Shakes added the soothsayer into the playto stay true to history. So no matter how much we ended up liking Cleo and Ant, they were destined to tragedy.

[vanessa]

yes it was true because caesar did rule rome and cleopatra did like to make physical and verble contact with rome rulers.she was a suductress,she tried to suduce the men that she knew were the rulers or soon to be rulers of rome.cleopatra did that so she could get close enough to try and become (queen) so that she could have rule over rome as well as eygpt.cleo would make the men so weak in the way that she would charm them with her beauty and that way put a guilt over them so that they would give her full power.she was smart very smart.<br><br><br> respond back to see if i helped you a bit

[KJ]

What a tragedy! Everyone dies in the end! But then . . . that's kind of the point of a tragedy. :)<br><br>Does anyone know if Shakespeare's play "Antony and Cleopatra," is actually true? There certainly was a Julius Caesar, and Octavian really did rule Rome for a while, but did history really happen like the play? Or is Shakespeare's work historical fiction?