Book contents
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Shame and Guilt in Personality and Culture
- Chapter 2 The Cycle of Violence in the History Plays
- Chapter 3 Fathers and Mothers
- Chapter 4 Make War, Not Love
- Chapter 5 The Motives of Malignity
- Chapter 6 Moral Nihilism and the Paralysis of Action:
- Chapter 7 Apocalyptic Violence
- Chapter 8 Transcending Morality, Preventing Violence
- Chapter 9 The Form and Pressure of Shakespeare’s Time and Ours
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 4 - Make War, Not Love
Antony and Cleopatra
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2021
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Shame and Guilt in Personality and Culture
- Chapter 2 The Cycle of Violence in the History Plays
- Chapter 3 Fathers and Mothers
- Chapter 4 Make War, Not Love
- Chapter 5 The Motives of Malignity
- Chapter 6 Moral Nihilism and the Paralysis of Action:
- Chapter 7 Apocalyptic Violence
- Chapter 8 Transcending Morality, Preventing Violence
- Chapter 9 The Form and Pressure of Shakespeare’s Time and Ours
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes the fact that there is room only for war, not love, in an extreme shame culture, such as the Roman Empire. Their suicides were motivated partly to avoid being shamed in Octavian’s “triumph” in Rome, but more importantly because it was only by dying together, and in response to each other, that they could avoid being separated from each other. Enobarbus illustrates the fact that guilt feelings also motivate suicide, so guilt is no solution to the problem of violence. Ironically, the main losers in this tragedy may have been the putative victor and his associates, who were incapable of love, and hence life, on the scale and intensity that Antony and Cleopatra achieved with each other.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Holding a Mirror up to NatureShame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare, pp. 78 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021