FROM AGE OF CHAUCER

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In the opinion of Dr. Johnson All for Love “has one fault equal
to many . . . that, by admitting the romantic omnipotence of love,”
Dryden “has recommended, as laudable and worthy of “Imitation that
conduct, which, through all ages, the good have censured as vicious,
and the bad despised as foolish.”

Dryden declared in his preface to the tragedy that he was
attracted to the subject-by the “excellency of the moral”; that the
“chief persons represented were famous patterns of unlawful love; and
their end accordingly was unfortunate.” For Dryden the love affair
of Antony and Cleopatra contained good potentials for tragedy because
it ex-emplified punishment for a love “founded upon vice”; it made
virtue attractive and vice repellent, and therefore met the
requirement for poetic justice. Dryden believed that the lovers do
not demand full tragic pity because “the crimes of love, which they
both committed, were not occasioned by any necessity, or fatal
ignorance, but were wholly voluntary; since-our passions are, or
ought to be, within our power” (Essays, ed. Ker, 1900 I, 191-192).
The inevitability of tragedy is lacking, according to Dryden, since
the lovers are not forced into their actions. But if we look closely
at the play, we find that it does not present a picture of “the
crimes of love” and of unlaw-ful lovers- being punished for their
voluntary transgressions. Instead, it gives us almost the opposite: a
love that is inevitable, an uncontrollable force; and the lovers
vindicated because of their passion. Our sympathies are drawn to the
lovers and held there because their passions are not within their
power.

The theme of All for Love is the conflict of reason and honor
with passion in the form of illicit love. From the preface it seems
That Dryden wished to show how Antony, torn between these two,
chooses unreasonable, passionate love and is consequently punished
for his denial of reason.!

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The play begins with a struggle. Antony, “Unbent, unsinew’d, made
a Womans Toy / Shrunk from the vast extent of all his honours,” hopes
to “cure his mind of Love.” Ventidius, the “old true-stampt Roman,”
sides with the world of reason, of “plainness, fierceness, rugged
virtue,” by cursing the joy and revelry of the Egyp-; tians, and by
deriding Alexas, the eunuch the “unmanned” as “Antony’s other fate”
(Works, ed. Summers, 1932, IV, 192, 194-196).

Aware of his degradation, Antony admits the truth of Ventidius’s
charges:

I have lost my reason, have disgraced. The name of Soldier, with
inglorious ease. In the full Vintage of my flowing honors, Sate
still, and saw it prest by other hands, (p. 199)

When Antony resolves to kill himself because the world is not
worth keeping, Ventidius offers to die with him. Thus, early in the
play some of the contradictions are evident.

This desperate, illicit love of Antony, a world-weary. Roman, and
the beautiful, sensual, and cunning Cleopatra has so enmeshed them
that they are unable to control themselves, although, both are well
aware of what they are doing. In Act V Dryden seems to have been
faced once and for all withtin,’ choice of punishing his lovers and
proving the “excellency of the moral” or closing the play with the
victory over reason and honor which has been inevitable since the
first act. Antony’s closing lines indicate that Dryden abandoned
altogether his ideal of poetic justice:

Ten years love,

And not a moment lost, but all improy’d,

To th’ utmost joys: (What Ages have we liv’d?

And now to die each others; and, so dying,

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While hand in hand we walk in Gfoyes below,

Whole -Troops of Lovers Ghosts shall flock about us,

And all the Train be ours.

No speech after this suggests a moral condemnation of the lovers.
Rather the play ends on quite another note:

I And Fame, to late Posterity, shall tell, / No lovers liv’d so
great or dy’d so well. (p. 261)

Faced with the opposing viewpoints of Dryden’s preface on the one
hand and the play itself with its sub-title on the other, we had best
take Ttie World Well Lost as the more accurate statement of Dryden’s
intention.

Dryden believed that Antony and Cleopatra should be pun-ished
since they violated one of the basic strictures of his age, but yet,
as we have seen, he could not regard his tragic hero and heroine as
illustrations of a neo-classical moral maxim—for his lovers, the
world was “well lost.” The result was a conflict, to which the
central weak-nesses in All for Love may be attributed.

A theme not pursued in Shakespeare so baldly is the insistence
that .Antony, like Samson, chose an alien woman, a recurrent motif in
Samson.

Octavia: I need not ask if you are Cleopatra;
Your haughty carriage—

Cleopatra: Shows I am a queen:
Nor need I ask you, who you are.

Octavia: A Roman:
A name that makes and can unmake a queen.

Cleopatra: Your lord, the man who serves me, is a Roman.
Octavia: He was a Roman, till he lost that name,
To be a slave in Egypt; but I come
To free him thence. (Ill, i)

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The critical link between All for Love and Samson is perhaps more
interesting even than the thematic and verbal similarities.

Dryden commenting on Antony remarks, “The death of Antony and
Cleopatra is a subject which has been treated by the greatest wits of
our nation, after Shakespeare.” The excellency of the moral is to be
noted. For the chief persons represented are famous patterns of
unlawful love; and their end accordingly is unfortunate.
5.5 MARK ANTONY

Antony, too, is willing to sacrifice all for love, and in him the
accent on suffering and compassion is even more marked. Not
“altogether wicked, because he could not then be pitied,” he is as
different; from the heroical hero of Dryden’s earlier plays as he is
from Shakespeare’s hero. Indecisive, and the constant prey of
conflicting sentiments, he is thrown by the successive pleas of
Ventidius, Octavia, Dollabella, and Cleopatra into alternating
postures of grief and hope; and his ability to assume such postures
with extravagance and he becomes the final measure of his heroism.

Early in the play Ventidious’ accords Antony the credentials of
the earlier heroes: a “vast soul” Herculean divinity:

Methinks you breath
Another Soul: Your looks are more Divine; You speak a Heroe, and
you move a God. (V, 347, 359) But the context of Ventidius’ praise is
a scene which exploits precisely those qualities in Antony which make
him less than a god: his compassionate sensibilities, and his “tender
heart.”

Antony gives in Ventidius in this scene and agrees to resume the
duties of his empireless to assert his glory than to demonstrate his
affection for his frieni, He hugs Ventidius and weeps with him: Sure
there’s contagion in the tears of Friends: See, I have caught it,
too. Believe me, ’tis not For my own griefs, but thine. (V, 353). His

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relationship with Cleopatra, though more complicated, is similarly
sentimental. Antony claims often that Cleopatra “deserves / More
Worlds than I can lose” (V, 357), but when the play begins he has
already effectively lost the world and we see him “walking with a
disturb’d Motion,” and shortly afterwards, lying prostrate upon the
stage.

Antony proves his worth as a lover much as Cleopatra does, not by
giving away worlds which are no longer in his power to give, but by
showing his capacity for sympathy and suffering. He can almost always
be reduced to tears by his friends and by her— “One look of hers,
would thaw me into tears,” he tells Dollabella, “And I should melt
until I were lost again.” (V, 395)— and in virtually every situation
in which we see him on stage, his grandeur is shown by the enormity
of his distress. No longer a conqueror, a family man rather than a
superman, Antony is the hero of a play which exalts the man of
feeling, the man who “Weeps much; fights little; but is wond’rous”

Antony’s flaw is resembles Samson’s uxoriousness. Dalila’s
overwhelming confidence that het touch alone (“Let me approach at
least, and touch thy hand”—951)’ would bring Samson back to her is
echoed by Ventidius’ passionatt advice to Antony not to accept a gift
from Cleopatra.

To quote Dryden’s words, Now, my best lord,—in honour’s name, I
ask you, For manhood’s sake, and for your own dear safety, Touch not
these poisoned gifts, Infected by the sender; touch them not . . .
(II, i)

Ventidius, Dolabella, and later Octavia have repeatedly to call
forth the sentiment of honour in Antony. He is known to be a great
warrior, but as he has been portrayed in the play, he appears a
feeble and more or less passive character. Cleopatra is consistent
throughout; her love for Antony never varies for a moment, even in

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her interview with Octavia, she defends herself ably for such love.

Even as a voluptuary and a dissipated rake Antony shows much of
zest, or a keen sense of enjoyment. He is a man of strong appetites
and passions or that he is capable of yielding himself to the
frenzied intoxication of love. Antony seems to be without character.

Ventidius tries to inspire him with a feeling for honour, but he

cannot retain it long. He has to bring in Dolabella and Octavia to

enforce his appeal to Antony’s fiftul sense of honour, Octavia brings

him fair terms. The terms give Antony entire freedom of choice. He

may even discard his legally wedded wife, Octavia, while he offers

his friendship to Octavius. Octavia says:

I’ll tell my brother we are reconciled; to rule the
He shall draw back his troops, and you shall march
East: I may be dropt and Athens;
No matter where. I never will complain,
But only keep the barren name of wife,
And rid you of the trouble.

Antony almost surrenders to Octavia, who wins the sympathy of the
audience. but there is more pity for Cleopatra. Octavia, behaves with

more grace and dignity than Antony. At last Antony confesses himself

vanquished. For the time being it is a total surrender to Octavia:
Take me,
Octavia; take me, children: share me all
[Embracing them.
I’ve been a thriftless debtor to your loves,
And run out much, in riot, from your stock;
But all shall be amended.

Antony is as variable as the wind. He is later filled with
jealousy when it is reported to him that Dolabella, sent by him to
bid farewell to Cleopatra for him, has been making love to her.
Ventidius might have overreached himself in this matter, for he
inflames jealousy in Antony by his report which Alexas is made to

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confirm in a way—and the result is the final breakoff between Antony
and Octavia. His jealousy again seems to be fatuous. He is incapable
of the fury of jealousy.

Antony is disturbed and dissatisfied with the confession
Cleopatra and Dolabella the trick that seems to have been played upon
him. His reason and judgment seem to be of a very low order. The
confession of Cleopatra and Dolabella leaves their bonafides
unquestioned, and makes truth come to limelight, but Antony is unable
to see it.

After his rupture with Octavia, Antony does not go back to
Cleopatra. He suspects Cleopatra of loving Dolabella, and he may
perhaps want to keep away from her. He resumes fighting with
Octavius, and then the crisis comes—the Egyptian fleet goes over to
Octavius. And Antony thinks that he has been betrayed by Cleopatra :

Ungrateful woman!
Who followed me, but as the swallow summer,
Hatching her young ones in my kindly beams,
Singing her flatteries to my morning wake;
But now my winter comes, she spreads her wings,
And seeks the spring of Caesar.

The following dialogue between Ventidius and Antony at this stage
throws light on his character:

Ant, I will not fight; there’s no more work for war.
The business of my angry hours is done.
Vent. Caesar is at your gates. Ant. Why, let him enter: He’s
welcome now.
Vent. What lethargy has crept into your soul ?
Ant. Tis but scorn of life and just desire
To free myself from bondage.

The slumbering sentiment of honour in him is awakened by
Ventidius now and then. His love for Cleopatra does not seem to be a

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strong passion: it is easily killed by a flick of jealousy. However,
he is going to die like a Roman, who would not let himself be
captured alive by his enemy. He throws himself upon his sword, but it
misses his heart.

Now a reconciliation is patched up between him and Cleopatra.|
Before dying he wants to be assured that Cleopatra is not false to
him. She exclaims.

First, this laurel Shall crown my hero’s head; he fell not
basely. Nor left his shield behind him,—only thou Couldst triumph
o’er thyself, and thou alone Wert worthy so to triumph.

Antony, destroyed by his own passions and the situation in which
he is placed, is a truly tragic figure.
5.6 CLEOPATRA

Cleopatra attempts to bring Antony back into her world. The
opening and concluding lines of the act indicate the progress of the
action and her success:

Cleopatra. What shall I do, or whither shall I turn?
Ventidius has o’rcome, and he will go.
Antony. How I long for night!
That both the sweets of mutual love may try. (p. 216)
Cleopatra is far more than the evil temptress, offering ruin,
that Dryden seems to indicate in his preface: instead, she
illustrates a moral complexity which reason cannot solve.
Iras. Call reason to assist you.
Cleopatra. I have none.
And none would have; my Move’s a noble madness, i
Which shows the cause deserv’d it. Moderate sorrow
Fits vulgar Love, and for a vulgar Man:

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But I have lov’d with such transcendent passion,
I soar’d, at first quite out of Reasons view,
And now am lost above it. (p. 204)
Her transcendent love is an emotion which rises above reason.
Cleopatra’s false cloak of virtue does not enrich her personality but
detracts from her essential character of mature sophistication: she
is hardly a woman who would mourn the loss of honor through love.

Cleopatra, though somewhat less masochistic than Octavia, is
similarly domesticated and sentimentally self-indulgent. In one
speech she complains that “Nature meant” her to be “A Wife, a silly
harmless household Dove, / Fond without art; and kind without deceit”
(p. 47; V, 399), and although these lines can be misleading out of
context, they do nonetheless de-scribe her wishes accurately. In
spirit, if not in name, she is indeed a suffering wife: utterly
“true,” as Dryden describes her in the prologue, utterly without the
sexual independence which characterizes the heroines of Dryden’s
earlier plays. “She dotes, / She dotes . . . on this vanquish’d Man”
(p. 3; V, 346).

Alexas remarks, that she herself bewails “the curse / Of doting
on, ev’n when I find it Dotagel” (p. 63; V, 418). Although she
proclaims the heroism of this dotage and its simplicity (her love,
she insists, is “plain, direct and open”), the play’s “emphasis is
not upon the magnanimity of her fidelity but upon the hardships which
she must endure because of it. Her major scenes are those in which
she must face the loss of Antony, and in all them she proves herself
by the sincerity of her grief. When Dollabella pretends that Antony
has cast her off unkindly, “she sinks quite down” on the stage (p.
50; V, 402), and after her encounter with Octavia, she exits to a
“solitary Chamber,”

... to take alone • My fill of grief:

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There I till death will his unkindness weep As harmless Infants
moan themselves asleep. (p. 44; V, 395)

Cleopatra is heroic, worthy of Antony, not because she is a
queen, and a woman infinite in variety, but because she suffers and
deserves pity as she herself is quick to point out to Octavia:

Yet she who loves him best is Cleopatra. If you have suffer’d, I
have suffer’d more. You bear the specious Title of a Wife, To guild
your Cause, and draw the pitying World To favour it: the World
contemns poor me; For I have lost my Honour, lost my Fame, And
Stain’d the glory of my Royal House, And all to bear the branded Name
of Mistress. There wants but life, and that too I would lose For him
I love.

Love triumphs in her, and death is the vindication of her love,
and it is love transcendent, and so it is little troubled by the
brittle, finicky question of honour. She is the finest drawn
character in the play. She is the triumph of Dryden’s art. The title
of the play, All for Love, or The World Well Lost is appropriate only
in relation to Cleopatra. It is justified by Cleopatra’s invariable
love and the sacrifice she made for it.

Cleopatra is rightly the heroine of the play. She is all for love
and love absorbs her whole being and she cannot think of anything. It
is all’ transcending love. Her position is that of a mistress to
Antony. But she is more than that, and love raises her above the
position of a mistress. She is not artful, coquettish, lascivious as
a mistress should have been. She is rather characterized by modesty
and seemliness in all her dealings with Antony.

Octavia knows not her character. Ventidius wishes only to
separate Antony from Cleopatra, and is biased against her from the
beginning. Antony, though brought into the most intimate relation

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with her, has not the understanding or insight to fathom the depth of
her being. Alexas knows too well that Cleopatra cannot disentangle
herself from her love for Antony. He remarks that she “dotes.....on
this vanquished man and winds herself about his mighty ruins ;” and
his opinion, is that she can save herself and her kingdom by giving
up Antony. Her love is unquestioning ; undeviating that she cannot be
the love of a mere mistress.

Cleopatras love is all-transcending, it is for such love that she
sacrifices her kingdom and herself. Ventidius gauges her as mistress
pure and simple. When he reports to Antony that Cleopatra has been
carrying on with Dolabella, he says :

I do not lie, my lord,
Is this so strange ? Should mistress be left,
And not provide against a time of change ?

You know she’s not much used to lonely nights. Cleopatra has not
the remotest intention of exchanging one lover for another. She would
not even save herself by casting off Antony when Antony had cast her
off. Alexas suggests that he can persuade Octavius to spare her life.
Cleopatra protests :

Base fawning wretch ! wbuldst thou betray, him too ?
Hence from my sight! I will not hear a traitor;

Twas thy design brought all this ruin on me. Alexas persuades her
t o p l a y with Dolabella so that she might make Antony jealous. A
mistress could have managed it all right. Later she confesses to
Antony:

Ah, what will not a woman do who loves ?
What means will she refuse, to keep that heart.
Where all her joys are placed ? ’Twas I encouraged,
’Twas I blew up the fire that scorched his soul,
To make you jealous, and by that regain you
But all in vain, I could not counterfeit:
In spite of all the dams my love broke o’er,

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And drowned my heart again.

The above words express her true and sincere love. Cleopatra is
f a r f r o m Octavia’s notion that she is “an abandoned faithless
prostitute.” It is an accident, and it is her misfortune that she has
the position of a mistress to Antony. But she bears him true, all
undying love. She might have better graced the position of a wife to
Antony. She asserts

Ah, no : my love’s so true,
That I can neither hide it where it is,
Nor show it where it is not. Nature meant me
A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove,
Fond without art, and kind without deceit;
But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me,
Has thrust me out to the wide world unfurnished
Of falsehood to be happy.

It is a pity that she has not been appreciated by anybody in the
play except by Charmion and Iras who are sincerely devoted to her.
With good reason she defends her love for Antony. When Octavia
accuses her with being the cause of Antony’s ruin, of his being
cheapened and scorned abroad, of his losing the battle of Acturn, and
all that, she replies :

Yet, she, who loves him best, is Cleopatra.
If you have suffered, I have suffered more.
You bear the specious title of a wife.
To guild your cause, and draw the pitying world
To favour it; the world condemns poor me.
For I have lost my honour, lost my fame
And stained the glojy of my royal house,
And all to bear the brand name of mistress,
There wants but life, and that too I would lose,
For him, I love.

It is the vindication of her love in the right strain. So much is
being made of Antony’s honour being at stake in his infatuation for
Cleopatra by Ventidius and Dolabella while Antony seems to be little
bothered about it. Cleopatra breathes but once of having sacrificed

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honour, fame and the dignity of her royal house for love. But honour
is not an issue with her, as it is supposed to be with Antony. Love
means everything to her; she lives and dies for love.

Commenting on Shakespeare’s Cleopatra Mrs. Jameson opines on the
features of her character “mental accomplishments, unequalled grace,
woman’s wit and woman’s wiles, irresistible allurements, starts of
irregular grandeur, bursts of ungovernable temper, vivacity of
imagination, petulant caprice, fickleness and falsehood, tenderness
and truth, childish susceptibility to flattery, magnificent spirit,
royal pride”.

Dryden’s Cleopatra is not such a complex character, so rich in
contradictions. Nor can we picture her as “one brilliant
impersonation of classified elegance, oriental voluptuousness, and
gypsy sorcery.” None of the subtlety, witchery, “infinite variety”
are displayed in Dryden’s Cleopatra. Though she does not w a n t i n
mental accomplishments, in grace or in womanly wit, to Shakespeare’s
Cleopatra she may, match her in love for Antony. Enobarbus, comments
“her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love.”
But Brandes notes the difference:

“This is literally true only that the love is not pure in the
sense “of being sublimated or unegoistic but in the sense of being
quintessential erotic emotion, chemically free from all the other
elements usually combined with it.” Cleopatra is a supreme creation
indeed a triumph of his art.

Cleopatra, urged by her maids to call reason to her aid, replies
that she has none, "and none would have." She has loved "with such
transcendent passion" that she has soared "quite out of reason's
view" and now is lost above it. She is incapable of thought and
depends on scheming Alexas to prescribe her course of action.
Cleopatra, the embodiment of love, whose being depends on Antony's,

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and who prefers death with him to life without him, is merely
pathetic.

5.7 OCTAVIA

Dryden regards Octavia as a sympathetic character who arouses
compassion. Octavia, is so well drawn as a “respectable” woman,
because it is her pride, her regard for honor in the form of her
reputation, which qualifies her “love” as something far more a vice
than the love of Antony and Cleopatra. Octavia is so undeniably self-
righteous that Antony does what man would do when he returns to
Cleopatra in Act 5. A good illustration of Octavia’s morality is her
plea: To quote,

Go to him. Children, go;
Kneel to him, take him by the hand, speak to him:
For you may speak, and he may own you too, .
Without a blush; and so he cannot all
His Children: go, I say, and pull him to me,
And pull him to your selves, from that bad Woman.
You, Agrippina, hang upon his arms;
And you, Antonia, clasp about his waist:
If he will shake you off, if he will dash you
Against the Pavement, you must bear it, Children;
For you are mine, and I was born to suffer, (p. 226)

The sudden intrusion of “virtue” into the scene may be morally
necessary, but Dryden makes it so much less attractive than the
compelling physical love affair that he is obviously aligning himself
with passion and against the reason and virtue he urges in his
preface. Even the sophisticated “serpent of the Nile” is dampened by
the overbearing virtue and becomes a pale shadow of Octavia:

Cleopatra, I have suffer’d more. / ‘You bear the
specious Title of a Wife, To guild your Cause, and draw the pitying

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World To favour it: the World condemns poor me;

(For I have lost my- Honour, lost my Fame,

(

And stain’d the glory of my Royal House,

And all to bear the branded Name of Mistress,
There wants that life, and that too I would lose
For him I love. (p. 229)
She feels wronged and pities herself.

Octavia is introduced as the symbol of the family. Although she
speaks in the name of the Roman empire, her role in the play is
really defined by her domestic relationships: as a wife,: a s a
mother, and as a sister. She is an abused wife, ‘ and also she is
“well-natur’d”; she leaves Antony ; only after she has exacted from
him, from Ventidius, from Dollabella, from the audience, a full
measure of the thrills of domestic piety. Her reconciliation scene
with Antony is a paradigm of sentimental drama.

Octavia enters, “leading Antony’s two little Daughters” and she
and Antony stage a brief debate in what appears to be the old style,
“and strife of sullen Honour.” But she confesses her love, and as
Antony himself makes clear, the debate shifts from honor to pity.
“Pity,” he says, “pleads for Octavia; But does it not plead more for
Cleopatra?” Ventidius answers that ‘Justice and Pity both plead for
Octavia’ and Antony admits to ,a “distracted Soul.” The maudlin
resolution of the scene “is worth quoting at length:

Octav. Sweet Heav’n, compose it.
Come, come, my Lord, if I can pardon you,
Methinks you should accept it. Look on these;
Are they not yours? Or stand they thus neglected
As they are mine? Go. to him, Children, go;
Kneel to-him, take him by the hand, speak “to him,
For you may speak, and he may own you too,
Without a blush; and so he cannot all

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His Children: go, I say, and pull him to me,

And pull him to yourselves from that bad Woman.

You, Agrippa, hang upon his arms;

And you, Antonia, clasp about his waste:

If he will shake you off, if he will dash you

Against the Pavement, you must bear it, Children;

For you are mine, and I was born to suffer.

(Here the Children go to him, etc.)

Ven. Was ever sight so moving! Emperorl” Dolla. Friend!

Octav. Husbandl

Both Childr. Father!

Ant; I am vanquish’d: take me, Octavia; take me, Children;

share me all.

(Embracing them.)

I’ve been a thriftless Debtor to your loves,

And run out much, in riot, from your stock; But all shall

be amended.

Octav. O blest hour!

Dolla. O happy change 1

Ven. My joy stops at my tongue,

But it has found two channels here for one,

And bubbles out above.

Ant. to Octav. This is thy Triumph; lead me’where thou

wilt; Ev’n to thy Brother’s Camp.

Octav. All there are yours.

Octavia’s Marriage is a result of reconciliation between Antony

and Octavius. When Antony deserts her for Cleopatra, she is out for

revenge as reflected in the following words of Alexas.
His wife Octavia,
Driven from his house, solicits her revenge.
Later as per the request of Ventidius, she seems to have come on

a mission of peace and friendship. She raises the issue of honour
with:

I love your honour
Because ’tis mine: it never shall be said. Octavia’s husband was
her brother’s slave.

So she brings fair terms of friendship from Octavius. According

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t o h e r Antony is free to leave her. Octavia seems to be very

;

generous. It might be a policy with her after all. She says :
For, though, my brother bargains for your love, Makes me the

price and cement of your peace, I have a soul like yours; I cannot
take Your love as alms, nor beg what I deserve.

She strongly feels that she is being offered as a sacrifice to
the peace and friendship between her brother and husband. Though for
a short time Antonio surrenders to her, it appears that Antony is
going to own his friendship and his life to her duty. Octavia says
that when she had been denied her wifely right it is but proper that
she should leave him.

Antony is moved to the point of yielding, when Octavia draws her
two little daughters round Antony. They are to pull him away from
“that bad woman’ (Cleopatra), and pull him to her. Th e t r i c k
succeeds. Octavia has been used, and is still being used as pawn in
politics. And she is conscious of it, as it appears from her speech
here. However, Antony surrenders to his wife and daughters. They are
to take him, and share him all.

During her arguments with Cleopatra, she claims the virtue of a
modest wife as against “black endearments,” of Cleopatra who
enslaving him. Cleopatra, retorting Exclaims:

And, when I love not him, Heaven change this face

(her own face) For one like that (Octavia’s face).
And then she claims that she loves Antony best. To this Octavia
can make no suitable reply. Octavia boldly announces that she has
come to free Antony from bondage, who was once a Roman, but is now a
slave in Egypt. Cleopatra’s reply is very effective:
When he grew weary of that household clog, He chose my easier

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bonds.

Octavia’s seeming success is not for long. Ventidius incites
Octavia against Cleopatra by dilating on her irresistible charms from
which Antony cannot yet be safe, and when he tells her that Antony
is making terms of peace for Cleopatra with Octavius, she is
stiffened against Cleopatra. She declares that she will not allow
this “strumpet’s peace.”

If Antony is jealous of Dolabella, Octavia is jealous of
Cleopatra. She cannot bear to see the passion in her husband for an
abandoned, faithless prostitute.” Antony bids her leave him, and
there is a passionate outburst from her. The result is a final
breakoff between Antony and Octavia. And Ventidius realizes that he
has pushed the matter to extremes. His objective has been to separate
Antony from Cleopatra, but he succeeds in separating Octavia from
Antony for ever ; and he says:

I combat Heaven, which blasts my best designs :
My last attempt must be to win her back;
But oh ! I fear in vain.

5.8. VENTIDIUS
Ventidius argues for reason, he wants to do an unreasonable thing

because of his deep love for Antony. In terms of the morality of
Dryden’s preface, Ventidius’ idea is wrong; in the context of the
play itself, it seems admirable. We thus have between intention and
achievement a split, which, though minor presages more serious
difficulties. At the close of Act I, Ventidius’ persuasion is
temporarily victorious, and Antony returns to reason and honor: He
declares to Ventidius: “Our hearts and armes are still the same” (p.
203).

Ventidius is Antony’s general, and his great and devoted friend
too. He means well by Antony. He finds Antony languishing at the
court of Cleopatra after the battle of Actium, still a slave to the
enchantment of Cleopatra. He is determined to rescue Antony from the

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bad, degrading influence of Cleopatra, and makes him resume fighting
with Octavius who is in camp with his army in Alexandria.

Ventidius is clever and intelligent—and is good at persuading. He
appeals to Antony’s slumbering sense of honour. He invokes honour
again and again, for Antony seems to be little alive to it. Ventidius
thus addresses Antony:

You sleep away your hours In desperate sloth, miscalled
philosophy, Up, up, for honour’s sake; twelve legions wait for you.
And long to call you chief.

Persuading Antony to go to fight Octavius again, he is able to
push him and his army back a little, but they do not leave Alexandria
as yet. He is able to kindle in Antony to a sense of honour, but the
effect does not last long. He applies himself more seriously to the
task of rescuing Antony from the influence of Cleopatra. He is
determined to separate them, otherwise, as he believes, Antony will
not be his old self again.

It is no small credit to Ventidius that he finally rouses Antony
from his blank despair by alternately praising him and reproaching
him for indolence. He may indeed think highly of Antony and his
capabilities :

But you are love misled, your wandering eyes, Were sure the chief
and best of human race, Framed in the very pride and boast of
nature.”

However much his spirit is roused, Antony cannot still think of
severing himself from Cleopatra. If he is going to fight Octavius
again, he says:

“Caesar shall know what ’tis to force a lover From all he holds
most dear.”

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So after all the persuasion Ventidius exercises upon Antony, love
has the first place in his heart, and then comes honour. If Ventidius
has succeeded at all, it is that Antony admits honour as a rival
issue. H e enlists the services of Dolabella and Octavia to wean
Antony away from the influence of Cleopatra. Antony welcomes
Dolabella as his old friend and he too harps on honour, and says that
he brings terms from Octavius—and these terms, as it appears, have
been arranged by Octavia.

Ventidius’s plan is successful for a short time when he brings
Octavia. Antony surrenders to Octavia, and promises to break off his
relations with Cleopatra. Ventidius’s next move spoils the game. When
Dolabella is sent by Antony to bid farewell to Cleopatra for him,
Ventidius brings Octavia on to the scene. They watch from a distance
Dolabella kneeling to Cleopatra and pressing her hand—and Octavia is
led to believe that Dolabella is making love to her.

Ventidius to Antony, which is confirmed by Alexas who happens to
be present at the moment. The passion of jealousy roused in Antony
provokes Octavia, and there is final breakoff between Antony and
Octavia. So Ventidius succeeds in separating Antony from Octavia, and
not from Cleopatra.

Ventidius demonstrates his faith in, and devotion to Antony in
the last scene. When Antony has no alternative but to kill himself
after the desertion of the Egyptian fleet in his last fight with
Octavius, he makes a pact with Ventidius that he should kill him
first and then take his own turn, Ventidius breaks the pact and kills
himself first—and so. Ventidius proves to be an ideal Roman soldier
in his death.

Ventidius plays the role of the Chorus. To Ventidius, Antony,
before his love for Cleopatra ruined him, was "the lord of half
mankind," the "bravest soldier and the best of friends," and "the
chief and best of human race." To Ventidius he is still a "vast
soul," "all that's good and godlike." To Dolabella, Antony is still
''lord of all the world." To Cleopatra he is lover, lord, and hero, a

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"greater Mars." Antony himself reminds us of his former greatness,
when he was "the wish of nations," and "the meteor of the world."
Once he brags of the time when he stormed the heights before Cassius'
camp so eagerly that he won the trenches single-handed, while his
soldiers "lagged on the plain below." These constant reminders enlist
our sympathy and admiration for a former hero.

5.9. Dolabella

At the opening of the play, Dolabella, once a friend of Antony is
reported to be seeking his ruin, for “some private grudge.” But this
does not turn out to be true. Later, Ventidius brings in Dolabella
and Antony welcomes him as his old friend. There was but a temporary
misunderstanding between Antony and Dolabella over Cleopatra, for
Dolabella too was attracted by Cleopatra. Antony alludes to it when
they meet again now. Dolabella has no guile ! He is frank and candid—
and this is the best thing we find in him :

And should my weakness be a plea for yours ?
Mine was an age when love might be excused,
When kindly warmth, and when my springing youth Made it a debt to
nature.

It is a very sensible report to Antony. Dolabella supports
Ventidius, and reproaches Antony with his degrading love for
Cleopatra which has cost him his manhood :

Twas but myself I lost; I lost no legions :
I had nb world to lose, no people’s love.

So Dolabella wants to waken in Antony his slumbering sense of
honour and his palsied manhood. As organized by Octavia he brings
terms from Octavius and they are quite honourable to Antony.

Dolabella is soft and sensitive by nature. When Antony wants to
send him to Cleopatra to bid farewell for him, he pleads to be
excused :

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I should speak

So faintly with such fear to grieve her heart, She’d not believe
it earnest.

He feels sorry for Antony; it seems that at the instigation of
Ventidius he has tried to stir up Antony’s spirit and alienate him
from Cleopatra. Now he feels that he should not have blamed his
friend’s love, and wishes that he were Antony, to be so ruined. In
the meantime, Cleopatra has been instructed by Alexas to excite
Antony’s jealousy by encouraging Dolabella to make love to her.

Dolabella, encouraged by the hint from Cleopatra that “love may
be expelled by other love,” is caught unawares, and frames the
parting message of Antony in the harshest words. And the shock is too
much for Cleopatra. Then Dolabella goes down on his knees and
confesses that he had been a traitor for the love of her and reported
wrongly of his friend, Antony, and now begs her forgiveness.

Dolabella loses his good name with Antony as the result of
Cleopatra too openly admitting her own part in kindling love in him.
The scene is witnessed by Ventidius and Octavia, and when it is
reported to Antony, he is inflamed with jealousy. Both Dolabella and
Cleopatra make an unreserved confession to Antony, but he will not
listen to reason. This episode produces serious consequence such as.
Dolabella’s loss of fair name, final breakoff between Antony and
Octavia, Antony’s estrangement from Cleopatra. For a l l t h i s ,
Ventidius and Alexas are responsible. If Dolabella has any fault, it
is his sentimentalism, and he becomes the victim of a shady intrigue.

Dolabells holds an important position in the court of Cleopatra
and Cleopatra often follows his advice. He is devoted to Cleopatra
and he is concerned about the dubious position of Cleopatra now that
Antony has fallen from his fortune—the battle of Actium being lost,

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and Octavius with his army stationed in Alexandria.

5.10. ALEXAS

Alexas speaks as the man of unimpassioned reason:
“You [Cleopatra] misjudge; You see through Love, and that deludes
your sight:” As what is strait, seems crooked through the Waiter;
But I, who bear-my reason undisturbed can see this Antony.
He is an u n d i s t u r b e d m a n of reason, and is ironically,
“unmanned,” a eunuch; and if this speech is designed to identify him
with reason, then his later failures—his- counsels to Cleopatra in
Act V to negotiate with Caesar, is lie to Antony, his scheme to make
Antony jealous have the effect of discrediting reason. He “sees
through reason” and his sight is deluded.
Alexas as the perpetrator of poetic justice, the “punishment”
inflicted upon the lovers. But then the whole problem of sympathies
and motiva^ tions in the play becomes confused because Alexas is the
least sympa-1 thetic character in the play and is, as such, a poor
instrument of justice. His lies are a dramatic weakness.

5.11. STYLE AND TECHNIQUE

T h e p l a y has moments of grandeur and some of Dryden’s most
intense poetry; some have even believed that if Shakespeare had never
written, it would be one of the most impressive monuments of English
drama. But this study suggests that the play is full of confusions:
the conclusion of the play endorses passionate love, though earlier
in the play, and in the: preface, passionate love is condemned as
unreasonable and therefore immoral; the inevitability of the action
is marred because the catastrophe is brought about by an accident;
the role of reason in the play; is ambiguous. Clearly the play is not
what it has been called (by Dobree, Restoration Tragedy, 1929, p.

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90): a play which “has a co-herence, a direction to one end, in a
word, a unity.”

Antony’s love is presented in the words of one recent critic, as
“a suitable enterprise for a hero. The heroism of All for Love is
subverted at every turn by sentimental effects which emphasize not
the heroic glory_of love, but ..its. domesticity and compassion.

Dryden is explicit in the prologue. The author, he writes:
fights this day unarm’d; without his Rhyme.
And brings a Tale which often has been told;
As sad as Dido’s; and almost as old.
His Heroe, whom you Wits his Bully call,
Bates of his mettle; and scarce rants at all:
He’s somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind;
Weeps much; fights little; but is wond’rous kind.
In short, a Pattern, and Companion fit,
For all the keeping Tonyes of the Pit,
I cou’d name more: A Wife, and Mistress too;
Both (to be plain) too good for most of you:
The Wife well-natur’d, and the Mistress true.
The weeping of the men in All for Love is especially conspicuous.
Antony cries three times onstage (V, 353, 388, 417) and once his
“falling tear” is reported (V. 362). Dollabella cries when Antony
exiles him (V, 417) and even Ventidius cries twice, once in grief for
Antony (V, 352) and once in joy over Antony’s family reunion (V,
390).

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The following views of Hazelton Spencer highlight the
“technical excellence in the play. It seems to me more apparent than
real. There is a unity of action, certainly, but it is of the most
artificial kind. As a matter of fact, the. play is a series of
confrontations between Antony and Ventidius, Antony and Alexas,
Antony and Cleopatra, Antony and Octavia, Octavia and Cleopatra. One
scene does not grow out of another, or out of characterization; the
action is essentially arbitrary with the dramatist, not spontaneous
with the characters. And the style is rarely good enough to redeem
this defect, as it so often is redeemed in Racine.”

Characterization (this is the play’s most grievous fault) has
been dedicated to the great principle of consistency. Antony is a
sentimentalist; Cleopatra’s degradation at Dryden’s hands is even
more pitiful. Shakespeare’s great psychological portrait of the queen
and woman is turned to the wall in favor of the puppet of a ruling
passion. The complex human being, with her infinite variety, gives
place to a lay figure of Woman in Love. •

The unity of place is likewise achieved by arbitrary measures;
the poet does not even trouble to excuse his characters for appearing
so promptly and so pat. They saunter in and saunter out from the four
quarters of the Mediterranean world, as if their leisure hours were
habitually passed in wandering up and down the streets of Alexandria.
Poetic justice is not respected except in the death of the hero and
heroine. Violence on the stage is permitted in the deaths of five of
the characters. Of comedy, even of ironic comedy, there is none;
there is no wishing her joy of the worm.

The influence of the heroic drama is powerful in this play, as it
is in Dryden’s alteration of Troilus and Cressida. The heroics not
infre-quently pass over into the extreme absurdities of that derided
form, yet the passion is rarely wild or indecorous. Even the diction,

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the best thing in the play, is for the most part smooth and flowing.
There is rant in profusion, but the daring homeliness, which makes so
many of Shakespeare’s metaphors so impressive, is never indulged in.

A s P r o fessor Saintsbury points out, there is nothing like
Cleopatra’s Peace, peace:

Dost thou not see my Baby at my breast,

That suckes the Nurse asleepe?

which, he continues, “no poet save Shakespeare since the
foundation of the world, would or could have written.”

Judged by what he conceived a tragedy ought to be and by what he
tried to accomplish with his source, the author of All for Love
achieved a remarkable tour de force. No one in his senses desires to
deny to the great name of Dryden one scruple’of the praise that such
an accomplishment deserves. But our admiration for its author’s
genius does not oblige us to like this play or, for more than a
moment in the fifth act, to believe in it.

The views of T. S. Eliot on Dryden’s blank verse herewith
cited. “As for the verse of ‘All for Love’ and the best of Dryden’s
blank verse in the other plays in which he used it, it is to me a
miracle of revivification. I think that it has more influence than it
has had credit for; and that it is really the norm of blank verse for
later blank verse playwrights.”

Dryden’s rendering there is nothing to say except that it has
none of the poetic a n d l i f e o f the original. It is accomplished
verse, and verse that lends itself to stage-delivery, but it is
hardly poetry. It is not poetry, in the sense that it is not the
product of a realizing imagination working from within a deeply and
minutely felt theme. Dryden is a highly skilled craftsman, working at
his job from the outside. The superior structure with which his play

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is credited as a theater-piece is a matter of work-manship of the
same external order as is represented by his verse. He aims at
symmetry, a neat and obvious design, a balanced arrangement of heroic
confrontations and ‘big scenes.’ The satisfaction he offers his
audience is that of an operatic exaltation and release from
actuality, a ballet-like completeness of pattern, and an elegantly
stylized decorum.

The structure, it will be seen, is always that of simple,
illustrative, point-by-point correspondence. One analogy may give way
to another, and so again, but the shift is always clean and obvious;
there is never any complexity, confusion or ambiguity. When there is
development, it is simple, lucid and rational.

This habit of expression manifests plainly the external approach,
the predominance of taste and judgment. It is an approach equally
apparent in the treatment of emotion in what are meant to be the
especially moving places—as, for instance, in the scene in which
Octavia and the children are loosed upon Antony:

Antony: Oh, Dollabella, which way shall I turn? I find a secret
yielding in my Soul; But Cleopatra, who would die with me, Must she
be left? Pity pleads for Octavia But does it not plead more for
Cleopatra?

(Here the Children go to him, etc.) Ventidius: Was ever sight
so movingl Emperorl Dollabella: Friend. Octavia: Husbandl Both
Children: Father! Antony: I am vanquished: take me,

Octavia; take me, Children; share me all.

(Embracing them).

Commenting on the scene Morris Freedman s a y s , “The emotion
doesn’t emerge from a given situation realized in its concrete
particualrity; it is stated, not presented or enacted. The

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explicitness is of the kind that betrays absence of realization.”
Antony is depicted, like Samson, as a man bereft of hw masculine

strength.

Oh, she has decked his ruin with her love,

Led him in golden bands to gaudy slaughter,

And made perdition pleasing: She has left him

The blank of what he was.
I tell thee, eunuch, she has quite unmanned him. (I, i) 6
Dryden follows the unities of time and place, and has
conse-quently to limit the number of characters and incidents, and
avoid any entanglements.
The first Act has but one scene, and so has every other Act. This
has been done to make sure of the unities of time and place.
All for Love is soundly plotted, the characters are fully
developed, and the verse is dramatic, vigorous, and flexible. The
conflict is between love and reason, heart and head. A t t h e
beginning of the play Antony has lost his reason; he has dis graced
"the name of soldier with inglorious ease." It is Ventidius' function
to make him see his plight rationally and to act according to the
dictates of reason. But Ventidius can never be sure of Antony, w h o
acts, now rationally, now impulsively, as his passions spin the plot.

As the play opens, Antony is already so far sunk in the
lethargy of love that his flashes of strength seem like the false
shows of health in a dying consumptive. But neoclassic limitations
gave little space for slow decline, and if terror is diminished, pity
is increased by the exposure of Antony's weakness and suffering.

5.12. Features of Heroic Play

The Heroic play is otherwise called the Heroic Tragedy, It

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arose first as reaction to Shakespeare because it was felt that
nothing more could be done with the Shakespearean type of tragedy,
and if they wanted rally to excel and do something new, they must
explore fresh fields.

It arose mainly to satisfy the social, moral and artistic needs
of the age and it lived so long as it satisfied those needs. Dryden
defined it, “as an imitation, in little of an heroic poem”. H e
noticed the great affinity between the two genres the end is the
same, the characters are the same, the action and passions are the
same. But the epic poet uses narration while the heroic play used
action and dialogue for the purpose.

The heroic play was invested with, “the greatness and majesty
of a heroic poem”. It was not to hold merely a mirror to nature but
to magnify reality. It was the representation of nature but nature
raised to a higher pitch. The plot, the characters, the passions, the
descriptions were all to be exalted above thelevel of common
converse. The style was also to be made epical. It was not to imitate
conversation of real life too closely, since sublime subjects ought
to be adorned with the sublimest expressions.The purpose of the
Heroic play was not to arouse, “pity, and fear” but admiration.

Dryden emphasised three virtues, Valour, Duty and Love, for
which the poet should arouse admiration. The dramatist must present
“patterns of virtues” in his plays.The most impressive feature of the
heroic play is the hero who is superman and in whom are emboided the
typically romantic qualities of Love and Valour. Valour is the
outstanding trait of his character. He is a great warrior and he
sweeps across the world in quest of glory and honour. He performs
incredible feats, conquering a few million soldiers is a mere trifle
for him. But he is not a mere men-killer, he is also a lover of
extraordinary emotional capacity. His love is so sudden and intense
that it surprises everybody including himself.

He throws away the entire universe in the pursuit of his love.
The audience is amazed at such superhuman devotion and loyalty.
Moreover, this love is not a mere physical passion it is a virtue,
heroic passion. It kindles in the soul honour’s fire, and so the
lover is eager to be worthy of his desire. To be worthy of his
beloved, he must be a man of honour and honour includes all possible
moral and spiritual qualities. Heroic love purifies the hero of all
base desire and makes him a fit object of admiration.

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But love does not arouse only admiration, it also arouses
compassion. It involves so much pining and whiming on the part of the
lover that in the true romantic tradition he is always on the verge
of dying. This lethargy of love is the only weakness on the great
hero. It paralyses his will. It makes him a captive helpless and
pitiable. He fawns on, and flatters, his beloved, and faints and
swoons. He passes from love to jealousy from hope to despair from
crisis to crisis.

Because the heroic tragedy arouses only “admiration” and
“compassion” an unhappy ending was not considered appropriate or
necessary for it. There is no place for tragic awe and sense of<
waste in the heroic play : Dryden discarded the unhappy ending. The
aim of the playwright was to extol some great hero and this naturally
made and happy ending quite unsuitable. Heroic play is a play
offering one sensation after another, arousing hopes and fears and at
last making the event happy to the infinite surprise and wonder of
the audience. The hero does not die in the end. He is virtuous, and
so virtue must be rewarded. It is only then that the people would
follow the virtuous example of the hero. Poetic justice was,
therefore, considered necessary in the interest of moral edification.

Sensationalism is an essential feature of the heroic play. This
admiration in the heroic play is not aroused merely by the
contemplation of the virtues of the hero, it is also here physical
wonder at the sight of the strange, the marvellous and the terrible.
Ghosts, spirits, operatic elements, scenic effects, stirring action,
bustle and turmoil, were all used to dazzle and stupefy the
contemporary novelty seeking audience. The theme is taken from past
history so that the dramatist may claim more reality for his
absurdity. The setting is always foreign and unfamiliar, and the time
remote, and in this way the dramatists try to procure, “willing
suspension of disbelief for the incredible in their plays.

To depict sudden turns of fortune and to provide theatrical
effectiveness, the heroic play gives prominence to martial action. It
also employs elements of the opera to provide thrill and spectacle to
the audience. There are songs and dances, angles and spirits, ample
measure. Scenes of horror and bloodshed are frequent.

Reaction against the manifold extravagances of the heroic play
began quite early. The heroic play could provide romance and heroism,
but it could not meet any larger demands. Soon there was a longing

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for nature and reality. Its artificiality, its improbability, its
extravagance, its lack of genuine human passion, doomed it to an
early and natural death.

5.13. ALL FOR LOVE AS A HERIOC PLAY

The Heroic Play usually called itself a tragedy but preserved
the hero’s life. Antony on the other hand, as Dryden points out, has
a flaw, and dies. But the exception proves the rule, for Antony’s
one human frailty proves by contrast that he is otherwise superhuman:

Virtue is his path; but sometimes it is too narrow for his
vast soul; and then he starts out wide, And bounds into a vice, that
bears him far from his first course, and plunges him in ills: But,
when his danger makes him find his fault, Quick to observe, and full
of sharp remorse, He censures eagerly his own misdeeds, Judging
himself with malice to himself, And not forgiving what as man he did,
Because his other parts are more than man.

Indeed, by the standards of the Heroic Play, this makes Antony
a superman, for the ordinary superman is merely content with virtue.
Characteristic of Antony is a superman who nevertheless whines; he
gives All for love after a series of struggles with duty, each of
which takes up an Act, and, turn and turn about, gains a temporary
mystery, the whole suggesting a formal debate rather than a play
which rises to and falls from a central climax. The setting is in
the near East. But it is not either in theory or effect a strict
example.

Moreover, Antony “fights little”. Not of course from lack of
valour but from the policy of curbing heroics hard in this play.
There is the usual state of siege, convenient for the hero’s army-
killing excursions and for saving appearances in the matter of the
unity of time, but Antony is allowed only one Hotspur sally, and even
then Ventidius pours cold water on his exultation.

‘Tis well; and he, Who lost them, could have spared ten
thousand more.

Use of verbal hyperbole is a significant feature. Ventidius’
theory that Antony’s vice proceeds from the unmanageable size of his
virtue is one of the few parallels to Almanzor’s stand off; I have
not leisure yet to die or

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It (the bull’s head) fell so quick, it did even Death prevent

: And made imperfect Bellowings as it went
The ruminations on life which occur often enough in the strict

Heroic Plays are absent from All for Love, as is everything else not
bearing on the situation, including the songs, Concomitantly the
structure has been tightened.

A Restoration tragedy like All for Love depends for its effect
not on character interest or on situation, and least of all on
exploit. The last is always off stage, and the others are
contrivances for exhibitions, in fine rhetoric, of emotions which,
although they are in All for Love invariably pertinent to situation
and role, are there for their own sake.

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5.14. HIGH TRAGEDY
For nearly three centuries critical opinion has agreed that

Dryden's All for Love, or The World Well Lost (December, 1677) is the
best example of Restoration high tragedy.

In conformity with the neoclassic unities and the vogue for
heroic plays, Dryden limited the action to a single straightforward
conflict between love and honor — or reason. To achieve unity of
place he set the action in one catch-all building, the Temple of
Isis, and by carefully avoiding any mention of time lie managed to
give the impression that the ideal time of the play was not more than
the permissible twenty-four hours/ The neoclassic critics objected to
the delightful slanging 'match between Cleopatra and Octavia as
indecorous because both were great characters of high rank. With
sublime common sense Dryden replied that, though one was a Roman and
the other a queen, "they were both women."

In All for Love we see the final downfall of Antony, a veteran
hero, is the mere "shadow of an emperor"; he has almost lost his
ability to reason and decide. Dryden, a master plotter, worked out
his conflicts and climaxes with almost mathematical precision. Thus
i n A c t one, honest Ventidius, the embodiment of honor and reason,
persuades Antony to leave Cleopatra and join twelve loyal legions
waiting for him in Syria. Alexandria is besieged by Caesar, but there
are still ways open. In Act two, Cleopatra, whose love is "a noble
madness," persuades Antony to remain with her, and Ventidius
complains, O women! women! women! all the gods Have not such power of
doing good to man As you of doing harm!

In Act three, Ventidius, aided by Antony's wife, Octavia, and
their two children, and by Antony's young friend, Dolabella, per-
suades Antony to desert Cleopatra and make peace with Caesar. In a
contrived but very effective scene, Antony stands alone. His two
little daughters run to him and throw their arms about him. Then

VENTIDIUS. Was ever sight so moving? — Emperor! DOLABELLA. Friend!
OCTAVIA. Husband! CHILDREN. Father! ANTONY. I am vanquished. Take
me,
Octavia — take me, children — share me all.
Embracing, them.
I've been a thriftless debtor to your loves,
And run out much, in riot, from your stock,

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But all shall be amended.

In Act four, nobody wins. On tbe advice of her prime minister,
the eunuch priest Alexas, Cleopatra tries to make Antony jealous of
Dolabclla and succeeds all too well. Octavia, angered at Antony's
concern for "an abandoned, faithless prostitute," flings away in a
huff, breaking off negotiations with Caesar; and, in a fury, Antony
rebuffs both Cleopatra and Dolabella. Now he is left with only
faithful Ventidius to share his wretchedness.

In Act five, the Egyptian fleet deserts to Caesar. Antony and
Ventidius have just decided to sally out with the remnant of their
forces and die bravely in battle, when Alexas, carrying out another
scheme to reunite the lovers, brings the false news of Cleopatra's
death. Completely unmanned, Antony cries,

My torch is out; and the world stands before me Like a black
desert at tV approach of night. I'll lay me down and stray no farther
on.

Ventidius, called on to slay his master, instead kills
himself. Antony falls on his sword. Cleopatra and her women find him
dying, and seat him in a chair. He sings his swan song in melodious
blank verse, dies, and Cleopatra, with her basket of "'aspics,"
quickly follows him in death. As a mob enters the temple, they see
the lovers seated together in somber state. Serapion, a priest,
pronounces their benediction:

Sleep, blest pair,
Secure from human chance, long ages out, While all the storms
of fate fly o'er your tomb;

And fame to late posterity shall tell, No lovers lived so
great or died so well.

No doubt All for Love is a magnificent tragedy, and yet
perhaps it is a too well contrived, too coldly classical in form and
style. Possibly the conflict is too mechanically balanced, the
"moral" too obvious. "The chief persons represented," said Dryden in
his preface to the play, "were famous patterns of unlawful love; and
their end accordingly was unfortunate." Yet, as his second title, The
World Well Lost, suggests, Dryden hedged on his thesis. He seems to
ask us, in effect, to forgive his lovers' faults and to blame their
fate on the circumstances of their world. The "famous patterns of

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unlawful love" are not presented as sinners or adulterers; indeed,
the word "sin" appears in connection with them only once in the play,
when Octavia accuses Cleopatra of owning "those black endearments
that make sin pleasing." Adultery is never mentioned.

Political necessity forces Antony to marry Octavia (Caesar's
sister) after the death of his first wife, Fulvia. He never loved
Octavia; he loved only Cleopatra, whom Dryden depicts, not as the
"serpent of old Nile," but as a sweet, good, beautiful woman meant by
Nature to be a wife, "a silly, harmless, household dove." Cleopatra
is aware that she has lost her honor and "stained the glory" of her
royal house "to bear the branded name of mistress," but Antony seems
unaware that he has done anything wrong, that he has broken a moral
law and must pay the penalty. Instead he blames his own sloth and the
gods, crying in his despair, "Is there one god unsworn to my
destruction?" In the

inal scene, as the blood drains from his body, he whispers to
Cleopatra,

Think we have had a clear and glorious day, And Heaven did
kindly to delay the storm Just till our close of evening. Ten years'
love, And not a moment lost, but all improved " To the utmost joys —
what ages have we lived! And now to die each other's; and, so dying,
While hand in hand we walk in groves below, Whole troops of lovers'
ghosts shall flock about us, And all the train be ours.

From Antony there is no word of remorse, regret, or repent-
ance.

5.15. SHAKESPEARE AND DRYDEN

An examination of the immediate cause of the tragedy as compared
with that in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra can be useful in
illustrating this weakness of All for Love. We should not judge
Dryden’s play a failure because it does not do thing s t h a t
Shake-speare’s does; it is a different play, conceived with
considerable differ-ent dramatic intentions. But in both plays the
lovers die, and die within the dramatic framework of the tragedy.

In Shakespeare’s play the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatr a i s

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brought about almost wholly by the love affair; all through the play
we feel the awful compulsion of this love forcing them to their
inevitable end. Dryden gave to the early part of his play the same
im-pression of inexorability. But the destruction later of Antony and
Cleopatra is not occasioned by their love alone. Instead, the
motivation for their deaths, the quarrel which leads to the suicide
of Antony, is the result of the blundering lies and machinations of
the well-meaning Alexas, who is not directly involved in the love
affair. Specifically, it is his lie to Antony about Cleopatra’s death
which causes Antony to kill himself and later Cleopatra to do the
same.

Although there is a similar chain of events in Shakespeare’s
play, there Cleopatra agrees to Charmian’s subterfuge, hiding in the
monument, the false suicide; whereas in All for Love Alexas on his
own initiative tells the lie which sets off the chain of forces. Thus
he assumes the immediate responsibility for the deaths, which are not
the inevitable result of the love affair but the result of a casual
mischance (the mistake due, ironically, to Alexas’ faith in reason).
The action moves from the lovers’ entangling themselves in inexorable
fate to a simple accident, not caused by the lovers themselves.

“Shakespeare’s have a life corresponding to the life of the
verse; the life in them is, in fact, the life of the verse.
Correspondingly, his poem as drama—in situation, larger rhythm,
cumulative effect—has an actuality, a richness and a depth in
comparison with which it becomes absurd to discuss Dryden’s play as
tragedy. It is, of course, understood that in a sustained reading
Shakespeare’s poetry conveys an organization such as cannot be
examined in an extracted passage” remarks T.S. Eliot.

“The point may be fairly coercively made by an observation
regarding what, in Dryden’s verse, takes the place of the life of

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metaphor and imagery in Shakespeare’s. What we find, when we can put
a finger on anything, is almost invariably either a formal simile, or
a metaphor that is a simile with the ‘like’ or the ‘as’ left out. The
choice is so wide and the showing so uniform that illustration must
be random.”

In the words of Ifor Evans “ Dryden indulged in no slavish
imitation of Shakespeare’s play, though the composition shows again
Dryden’s admiration for Shakespeare. Dryden breaks down the widely
distributed scenes of Shakespeare and brings the theme as close to
the unity of action as its nature will permit. The picture of Antony
is less generous than in Shakespeare, for the emphasis is on the very
last phase, full of fretting and nerves and morbid suspicion. Nor has
Cleopatra the ‘infinite variety’ that she once possessed. Antony and
Cleopatra was the play in which Shakespeare approached the Values of
the Restoration stage most closely, for this is the only one of his
mature tragedies in which love is made the dominant theme. All for
Love, of all Dryden’s plays, is the one in which the Restoration
motives of love and honor are subordinated, and their place taken by
suspicion and jealousy.

Dryden’s Antony is far closer to Milton’s Samson, as is his
Cleopatra to Dalila, and Ventidius to the chorus, than they are to
their counterparts in Shakespeare’s tragedy. But the tempestuous,
mighty-spirited, mature lovers of Shakespeare were transformed by
Dryden to resemble the far simpler, more predictable figures of
Samson and Dalila. For example, he pruned and trimmed Enobarbus'
florid description of Cleopatra as she came down the Nile in her
barge, changing its archaisms and deleting its pathetic fallacies to
fit the Restoration taste for the language of direct statement. Thus
Enobarbus' verdict on Cleopatra.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.
Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where

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most she satisfies became in Dryden's hands Antony's "refined"
apostrophe to his mistress,

There's no satiety of love in thee: Enjoyed, thou still art
new; perpetual spring Is in thy arms; the ripened fruit but falls And
blossoms rise to fill its empty place, And I grow rich by giving.

Dryden glossed over the conclusion of Enobarbus' description,
For vilest things Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish. Dryden's Cleopatra was never wanton.
Shakespeare dramatized the entire Antony and Cleopatra story as told
by Plutarch, while Dryden concentrated on the final events in the
tale, after Antony's defeat by Octavius Caesar at Actium.

5.16 LET US SUM UP

Through this lesson we have learnt the following.

1) Dryden’s life and works.
2) Plot – Construction
3) Theme of “All for Love”
4) Important Characters of All for love.
5) Styles and techniques of Dryden.
6) Features of Heroic play etc.
5.17 Lesson-End Activities

1. Write an essay on the character of Antony.
2. Compare and contrast Cleopatra and Octavia.
3. What is the significance of the role of ventidius?
4. Consider All for Love as a heroic play?
5.18 References

· Emerson Everett H., Harold E. is, and Ira Johnson “Intention
and Achievement in All for Love”

· Kirsch, Arthur C., All for Love from Dryden’s Heroic Drama
Princeton, N/J.: Princeton Univer-ify Press, 1965.

· Spencer Hazelton, From “Dryden’s Adaptations” in Shakespeare
Improved (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-vard University Press.

· Eliot T . S . F r o m “Dryden the Dramatist” by From The
Listener, V, No. 119 \ April 22, 1931,

· Leavis F . R . F r o m “ ‘Antony and Cleopatra1 and ‘All for
Love”: A Critical Exercise” by From Scrutiny, V, No. 2
September

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Unit – III
Lesson – 6
Francis Bacon
Contents
6.0 Aims and Objectives
6.1 Bacon's Life and Works
6.2 Of Ambition
6.3 Of Revenge
6.4 Of Love
6.5 Bacon’s Regard for Structure
6.6 Poetic Qualities
6.7 Bacon's Use of Allusions and References
6.8 Let Us Sum Up
6.9 Lesson – End Activities
6.10 References
6.0 Aims and Objectives
This lesson talks about Francis Bacon. You will
understand, by reading this lesson, the life and
works of Francis Bacon and his use of concenities as
reflected in his works.
6.1 Bacon's Life and Works
Francis Bacon was the younger son of Sir Nicholas
Bacon who held the high position of Lord Keeper of
the Great Seal of the King-a political office, and
was born in the city of London on January 22nd 1561.
To hold his high office, his father must have been an
educated and cultured courtier but even more

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surprising it is to find that his mother also was
highly educated in Latin and English and made a
scholarly translation of Jewel's Apology for the
Church of England which was written in Latin into
English. Francis was sent to Trinity College,
Cambridge, where the education was at that time in
Greek and Latin but where the spirit of the new
learning had begun to establish itself to such an
extent that the works-especially, the scientific
treatises-of Aristotle were being called in question.
After graduation, be entered Gray's Inn to study Law,
and he went to Paris in the company of the ambassador
Sir Amyas Paulet, since travel on the continent of
Europe was considered at that time the final touches
to the education of a gentleman and a courtier.
Unfortunately his father died suddenly, and he had to
return to England without spending much time abroad.
But prepared for a political career by being elected
to Parliament at the early age of 23. He soon made
his mark in Parliament because of his sharp intellect
and oratorical ability, and was called upon to draw
up a Treatise of Advice to Queen Elizabeth at the age
of 24. He then became a Bencher (a Magistrate) in
Gray's Inn, but failed to secure any better political
post.)

Francis Bacon, being a younger son, did
not inherit an estate from his father and had to
make his own way in the world. He was relationship
o f s e l f -giving love. He deals with them in a
utilitarian sense. Though he values them highly it
seems clear that he has not experienced such

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closeness himself. There seems to be a pre-occupation
with the self-rather than with the other. This
selfishness and self-regard mark the tone of these
essays. The same is also true with regard to his
essays on religion. Bacon is lacking in what we may
term as religious fervour. His religion is not of the
heart or soul, but of the mind. So he does not think
of what religion means to the human soul, but to the
live community of mankind on this earth. He is
thinking of religion in human terms even when he
thinks of death so he leaves out any mention of life
after death or resurrection. We may safely conclude
that religion of the more fervent kind played no part
in his life it was all a matter of belief, and of
human relationships and morality-a path to follow,
not a heaven to aspire to.

Essays filled with thought so massive could
only be written by Bacon; and in this respect, the
earliest of English Essayist still stands alone. Yet
the massive thought we poured into a style that has
been unrivalled as well-a style suited to the
shortest and briefest of meditations, and stately and
dignified enough to convey the deepest ideas.
Baconian lucidity has become a byword in English, but
the essays have still to be read slowly to allow the
mind to grasp the concept and the progression of
ideas-The style suits itself to the simple as well as
the profound, it can be .used in any situation and so
is completely flexible. Some of the best English
prose is suited only to highly emotive passages, or
to lofty oratory—but Bacon's style is a 'style for

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all seasons'.

6.2 Of Ambition

Ambition gives a strong motivation to a man,
unless it is frustrated. If man's ambition is
frustrated then ambition turns to evil, and becomes
venomous. So an ambitious man who is given an
opportunity is an asset, but a frustrated man is a
danger.

Since ambitious men have the necessary drive
and motivation for achievement, Kings and rulers
should make use of their gift. Ambitious men make the
best soldiers and generals; they are also useful
courtiers in order to provide rivalry and competition
among them. The King can encourage one at one time,
and another later. So that one does not get all the
time. Positions of danger and envy are best offered
to ambitious men as they will be bold enough to take
them and make the most of them. Here he probably
means foreign embassies and such political mission.
One ambitious courtier may also be used to pull down
another who is getting too powerful, as in the case
of Macro, whom Tiberius the Roman Emperor used to
pull down Sejanus. So it has been shown that
ambitious men are useful to the state-it now remains
to see how best they can be used without causing
trouble.

Men of low birth who have been raised to high
positions are less troublesome and more easily
controlled since they have more to lose. Men of good
and pleasant natures are better than men of harsh and

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hard dispositions. It is better to keep changing the
power structure, thus getting in fresh blood e v e r y
now and then, instead of allowing one man to hold a
dominant position for too long.

So Kings should change their favourites
frequently. I t i s a weakness in a monarch to keep a
single favourite too long. Another method is to
encourage competition between rival men or rival
groups, so that both parties are kept guessing, and
none gets any monopoly of favour. Kings should also
show some favour to men of lower birth, and greater
steadiness to keep the balance of power.

Those who have a single ambition are better
than those who desire to shine in every sphere.
Constant competition among those in the lower ranks
to rise is a good thing, either in politics or in
business. These men should be ambitious for honour,
which is the safest, for it holds them to morality
and makes them bold to their positions in society. A
good King will be able to pick out men whose
ambitions are good, and whose intentions are to serve
his King and country.

I n c h o o s i ng ministers particularly, rulers
should be careful to choose such men as are anxious
to serve, and not merely to build their own selfish
profits. If it is in the military services the men
chosen should be brave, not for personal but for
national glory, if it is in business the man should
be conscious of service to the country as well as
serve his own profit. One way of finding such people

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is test and see whether they are willing to obey
commands and offer services.

In this essay, Bacon shows himself to be a
shrewd judge of courtiers, generals, and businessmen.
He seems to understand how to make the best use of
able men who are ambitious for themselves, and to use
them for the service of the country. He shows himself
to be farsighted statesmen. It is noteworthy that he
takes a very detached view of the subject even though
he himself was in the very positions that he
describes. He was a poor man who had to be patient
and even frustrated for a long time before he
obtained recognition. Yet he looks at the problem
from a detached standpoint and is able to make a
number of points that a good manager in a large
company today, as well as a chief minister in a state
of a government, may find useful. Bacon is an expert
in assessing situation and men and finding who would
fit the problem to be solved, best

6.3 OF REVENGE

Revenge is a crude form of justice and it
usurps the function of law. So it should be our
foremost duty to stop the practice by legal steps.
Actually there is no superiority in taking revenge,
Rather, to condone is princely virtue. Wise men do
not trouble themselves thinking of past bitterness.
No one does wrong for the wrong’s sake. Every wrong
doer is motivated by a strong self interest. If any
man does wrong without any motive, it is because
cannot help it, it is in his nature.

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Revenge is sometimes tolerable for those wrongs

which are not legally punishable, but the avenger

must sea that his revenge is not unlawful. Noble

revenge is that which is open and bold. But cowards

are sneaking mischief makers. Enemies may be

forgiven, as Jesus has commanded us, but Cosmos holds

that treachery from friends is unpardonable. Job

remarks that we should accept both good and bad in

the same spirit.

The thought of revenge disturbs the mental
peace of the avenger, which would have been tranquil
otherwise. Public revenges are often fortunate
whereas private revenges are not. In fact, the
avengers lead the life of the witches, which is both
mischievous and unfortunate.

6.4 OF LOVE

“Of Love” The great the worthy men have always
kept themselves from love. It is a form of idolatory
and therefore contemptible; it grossly distorts and
exaggerates truth and it deprives a man of the gifts
of Juno and Pallas. On analysis of the observations
of respective love, it is the most powerful in times
of weakness, and when it is found to be
irresponsible, it ought to be kept within proper
limits. In the case of soldiers love is the
compensation for peril sought in pleasure Love should
be allowed to expand from individual love t o t h e
general love for humanity and at last. Bacon
concludes that nuptial love is the cause of mankind,
friendly love is the perfection of it, but sensual or

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wanton love is the corruption of it.

Bacon says that love should be kept out of
life. It may be allowed only on the stage, in the
tragedies and comedies. In real life love creates
great mischief and therefore “great and worthy
persons” have kept themselves away from it. We must
be very careful in keeping our hearts free from
passion, for it has found entrance even in the hearts
free from passion, for it has found entrance even in
the hearts of ansters and wise men like Appius
Claudius, when they have been slightly of their
guard.

It is not proper to say that we are each a
sufficient theatre to one another. All men are equal
and a man kneeling before a woman, is a sort of
idolatory and it is not proper for a man to use his
eye in his affair which was given to him to execute
higher purposes. Another evil that love develop. In
man is a tendency to exaggeration. A lover always
speaks in a hyperbolic language. It is impossible to
love and to be wise man ought to guard very carefully
against this passion, in which he loses himself.

A lover has neither riches nor wisdom. This
can be illustrated by the example of Paris who chose
love and despised the two, as a result of which the
whole nation was involved in war. Love overtakes a
man when he is weak either due to great prosperity
or great adversity; but in the latter case it is less
frequent from this very fact, that it overtakes a man
in his weakness - it proves that it is the outcome

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of folly.
The best course is that if one cannot help

loving, he must keep his love limits. He should not
let this passion interfere with the serious affairs
in life a man does not adopt the above course, he is
sure to lose his fortune and he cannot be able to
achieve his land. Even soldiers fall in love but with
them it is the compensation sought for perils.

Man is inclined to love and if he does not
spend his love on the particular person or a group of
persons, it expands itself into universal love and
such men become very kind and charitable to others.

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6.5 Bacon’s Regard for Structure
Structure

In the essay there is a strong organic unity of
structure like a tree with its various branches. From
the main trunk of the basic concept arise the growth
and evolution of a series of related ideas that are
structured accordingly, one. leading on and sometimes
generating the other; or explaining and justifying
what had been said earlier.

Bacons divides his essays into paragraphs, It
is not like the modern system of paragraphing, where
we set one idea and its relationship in a single
paragraph. Sometimes there are sentence paragraphs. A
group or cluster of ideas are presented at the same
time. Hence his paragraphs are long and sometimes
contain whole series of related ideas, which break up
into separate units.

Bacon maps out the subject, so that the reader
will know, what exactly is to follow. The exclusion
of all extraneous material is the essence of Bacon's
structure. There is nothing but the barest truth of
what he desires to present.

The logical division into its several aspects
a n d p a r t s , is noteworthy. This preserves the
perspective and not giving undue prominence to any
one portion of the material.

To conclude with the words of Bacon,

"Above all things, order, and distribution, and
singling put of parts, is the life of despatch; so as

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the distribution be hot too subtle; for he that will
not divide, will never enter well into business; and
he that divideth too much will never come out of it
clearly". (Essay "Of Despatch")

Bacon's use of Aphorism
Bacon's use of structure of individual
sentences has caught the attention of stylists His
apposite style is based on his use of aphorism. This
use of aphorism give firmness and flexibility to the
style. Bacon here makes use of a pattern which has
been known for a long time and was, much respected in
his time but not used as he did as a quality in prose
writing.

“The aphorism is to be found for instance in
the Bible, in the Book of Proverbs; it is to be seen
in some of the pronouncements of Moses, especially in
the Laws. It is to be found again in the sayings of
the prophets,' and finally Jesus himself used an
aphoristic style in his teaching the best example
being the Beatitudes. The aphorism was also to be
seen in the writings of the Greek and Latin writers
of Classic times who used it with great effect. So it
was no new method that Bacon had invented it was
rather one that he knew and had appreciated, and had
appealed to him as suitable to the ideas together.”

'The aphoristic style makes his essays more
professional and intellectual. Aphorism can be
easily memorised and quoted, and provides a kind of
wisdom on occasions which cannot be achieved in any
other manner and Bacon them a new form and lease of

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