Publication details
In Love with Cleopatra on English Restoration Stages
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Hradec Králové Journal of Anglophone Studies |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | Odkaz na plný text článku. |
| Keywords | early-modern English theatre; Restoration theatre; Charles II; Louise de Kérouaille; Duchess of Portsmouth; Cleopatra; Charles Sedley; John Dryden; Antony and Cleopatra; All for Love |
| Description | The present study discusses two late early-modern versions of the Cleopatra story written for the English stage: Charles Sedley’s Antony and Cleopatra and John Dryden’s All for Love (both premiered in 1677). While modern criticism sometimes considers these plays as adaptations of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1604–8), this study argues that both of them offer a unique vision of Cleopatra’s myth that is informed by the contemporaneous political climate in the country rather than by Shakespeare’s tragedy. While Sedley’s Antony and Cleopatra offers a critical image of King Charles II and his international policies (especially by means of criticising his relationship with his French mistress Louise de Kérouaille), John Dryden’s All for Love gives an idealised image of the relationship of Charles and his mistress by casting it as heroic love. |
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