ANTONY & CLEOPATRA (1607) is one of Shakespeare’s finest achievements and dates from his mature period. It is a tragedy of nobility brought low by enslavement to passion. The magnificently flawed hero and heroine are overcome by their single-minded obsession with each other and this encompasses their downfall.

In Antony and Cleopatra the majesty of the characterization and the poetry of the language reveal Shakespeare in full maturity and sureness of touch. The unseemliness of the erotic obsession of two powerful lovers past their first youth is shown to lead inexorably to personal and political tragedy.