Constructive Power and Discordant Discourses in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

Mohamadi, Abolfazl

doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.58.18

ILSHS > ILSHS Volume 58 > Constructive Power and Discordant Discourses in...

< Back to Volume

Constructive Power and Discordant Discourses in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

Full Text PDF

Abstract:

The present paper aims to focus on how the circuit of different discourses in Alexandria and Rome contributes to the subject formation in Antony and Cleopatra. Identity, which acts as trap in this play, precipitates the characters from two different countries or contexts into a war through creating binarized categories with heterogeneous possibilities. Mark Antony – one of the Triumvirs of Rome in search for self-actualization strives against his country’s discourse in the beginning, he places himself in the warring discourses of Rome and Alexandria. When in Alexandria, he is inside the discourses of Rome, and when in Rome, he is inside the discourses of Alexandria. Like the nature of the signifier as it can happen and be determined by other contexts, Antony retains references to Rome when he is Alexandria, and establishes himself as a subject and makes his signification possible in this foreign country by relating himself to epicurean concepts other than his own former stoic attitudes. Thus, mark of the past element remains in him. Through discourse analysis, this study aims to analyze how the loop of self-hood is firmly tied by the signifiers, and how power, which is not solely negative and repressive, but positive and productive, shapes Antony’s capricious personality as he both challenges and is challenged by power. In the end it is revealed that Mark Anthony refashions his identity and perspective by admitting and embracing multiplicity between Rome’s stoicism and Alexandria’s Epicureanism.

Info:

Periodical:

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (Volume 58)

Pages:

18-24

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.58.18

Citation:

A. Mohamadi, "Constructive Power and Discordant Discourses in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra", International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Vol. 58, pp. 18-24, 2015

Online since:

September 2015

Authors:

Abolfazl Mohamadi

Keywords:

Binarized Categories, Discourse, Epicureanism, Identity, Power, Resistance, Stoicism

Export:

RIS, BibTeX, Text

Distribution:

Open Access

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References:

[1] Ashcroft, Bill, and D. P. S. Ahluwalia. Edward Said. London: Routledge, (2001).

[2] Derrida, Jacques. Of grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, (1976).

[3] Derrida, Jacques. Writing and difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (1978).

[4] Foucault, Michel, and Colin Gordon. Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books, (1980).

[5] Foucault, Michel. Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. New York: Pantheon Books, (1977).

[6] Jones, W. T. A history of Western philosophy. 2d ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, (1969).

[7] M. G. E. Kelly, The Political Philosophy of Michel Foucault. London: Routledge, (2009).

[8] Phelan, James. Dang dai xu shi li lun zhi nan = A companion to narrative theory. Di 1 ban . ed. Beijing shi: Beijing da xue chu ban she, (2007).

[9] Russell, Bertrand. A history of western philosophy, and its connection with political and social circumstances from the earliest times to the present day. New York: Simon and Schuster, (1945).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1949346

[10] Saussure, Ferdinand de, Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye, Albert Riedlinger, and Wade Baskin. Course in general linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., (1966).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/4344381

[11] Shakespeare, William. The complete works of William Shakespeare. Champaign, Ill.: Project Gutenberg, (1990).

[12] Strauss, Claude. The savage mind. Paris: Librairie Plon, (1966).

[13] Witt, Norman W. St. Paul and Epicurus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, (1954).

[14] Taylor, Charles. Sources of the self: the making of the modern identity. Reprint. ed. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, (2001).

[15] Young, Robert. Untying the text: a post-structuralist reader. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1981).

Show More Hide

Cited By:

This article has no citations.