Roman World, Egyptian Earth: Cognitive Difference and Empire in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra 1

Abstract

Critics over the years have found many ways to read the binary division of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra between the poles of Rome and Egypt.2 Recently, postcolonial theory has informed readings that emphasize the “Otherness” of Egypt: as John Gillies has argued, the “‘orientalism’ of Cleopatra’s court — with its luxury, decadence, splendour, sensuality, appetite, effeminacy, and eunuchs — seems a systematic inversion of the legendary Roman values of temperance, manliness, courage, and pietas.”3 However, as these critics usually acknowledge, the contrast between the two blurs upon closer inspection, since, as Gillies again puts it, “only from the vantage point of Egypt does Rome seem Roman.”4

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