In this essay I will explore the transformations of two signs that structure Antony and Cleopatra: performance and writing. As each circulates in the diverse dramatic contexts of the play, they articulate its thematic elements into a series of varying relations which operate at different levels of abstraction; from interactions between principles of flow and constraint, through the construction of characters’ honour, virtue, or reputation, to what might be the perceived meaning of the physical gestures, actions, and visual appearances and arrangements when presented on-stage. By tracing some of those circulations, I hope to elucidate some of the effects that they produce in terms of a relation between subjects and their dramatised world, and the operation of the play’s dramatised world in the theatrical event.

In the opening scene of Antony and Cleopatra, the first sentence describes Antony’s identity as being in a state of flux: "this dotage of our general’s / O’erflows the measure" (1.1.1-2). An image system is constructed throughout the text along chains of association extending from this sentence; they assign different subject positions for the characters to speak from or to be viewed from. "Measure," firstly, appears to refer to a limit that describes the proper standard of Roman identity. It is the spectacle of Antony deviating from this standard that alarms its Roman audience (Demetrius and Philo). Deviation from Roman measure is figured as flow. The description goes on to elaborate this principle of overflowing in physical terms; Antony’s heart refuses all self-restraint. His desire is excessive, producing a transformation of his identity from a "pillar of the world"--a firm bearer of the Roman state, likened to Mars, the god of war, clad in armour--"Into a strumpet’s fool" (12-3). Even before he appears on-stage, therefore, Antony is in some sense constituted by the ideological structure of the Roman world; "that great property / Which still should go with Antony" (58-9) is a quality that Demetrius and Philo understand to define Antony’s proper appearance, in conformity with his proper identity as a pillar of the world, and is measured by a Roman standard. That property is his honour--the accounting of his virtue--which circulates in the form of reputation. Later in the play, the pretext for Antony’s break from Caesar is the latter’s denigration of his reputation:

The medium of reputation is language; it is principally something one hears about or tells of. If the constitution of Antony’s Roman identity is measured by language, perhaps his deviation from it may be said to be by means of the extra-linguistic? In terms of the chains of associations from the first sentence, Demetrius and Philo speak from within the Roman ideological structure, and insofar as they cast a censorious look towards Antony, they inhabit a subject position which is that of a spectator; "Take but good note . . . . Behold and see" (1.1.11; 13). At first glance, both these imperatives appear to refer to spectating as a visual activity. Perhaps, however, they may serve to draw out a distinction implicit in the activity of Demetrius and Philo: taking "note" might be said to involve the making of a written record; transcribing reputation according to the visual evidence beheld. Roman spectatorship measures identity by the relation between visual performance and verbal reputation. The interest of the visual spectacle for the (dramatic and, by extension, theatrical) spectators lies in the contradiction with reputation it presents and the effect of transformation of identity it implies ("The triple pillar of the world transform’d / Into a strumpet’s fool" [12-13]). The subject position that Antony inhabits, seen from which his identity appears to be in a state of flux to the Roman spectators, is that of a performer. It is performance that effects a destabilising transgression of the imperial regulation of language. A few lines into this scene Antony visually indicates, rather than verbally describes, his new-found definition of "the nobleness of life": it "Is to do thus" (36-7). Were such a definition to become the standard of worldly reputation ("the world to weet"), however, it would imply the dissolution of Rome itself; "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the rang’d empire fall" (33-4). "Here is my space" Antony insists, which serves to associate verbal reputation with Rome and visual performance with Egypt.

The first scene, however, is framed by two conflicting accounts of reputation. Philo’s account contrasts the two, locating the first in the past and the second in the present, and Demetrius’ reference locates the second--which, for them, has been confirmed by the spectacle of the scene--in the realm of rumour circulating among the plebeians: "I am full sorry / That he approves the common liar, who / Thus speaks of him at Rome" (59-61). When Antony’s attention has been turned toward his Roman reputation, he commands the messenger to "mince not the general tongue: / Name Cleopatra as she is call’d in Rome" (1.2.102-3). The threat of the spectacle of Antony with Cleopatra comes from its ability to produce a "confluence" of Roman reputation and Egyptian performance that circulates in a public realm among the "slippery people" (183). Performance is again associated with the principle of flow which disrupts proper Roman measure. It produces a discandying effect on the stability of Roman reputation by leaking into the realm of its circulation and producing an alternative version of identity.

The scene opening act three is significant in this respect. Although hardly necessary for the development of the plot, it nonetheless provides an associative knot from which we might assess the intersections between performance and writing in terms of reputation’s construction of identity. The vanquished paraded forth in triumph is a cathectic image for the protagonists, which is anticipated here by Ventidius with the body of Pacorus. Ventidius decides to write to Antony--to "humbly signify what in his name, / That magical word of war, we have effected"--since he who does "more than his captain can, / Becomes his captain’s captain" (3.1.30-1; 21-2). Ventidius uses a letter to turn Antony’s implicit gaze away from the spectacle of his officer’s triumph towards the construction of his Roman reputation; otherwise, "in his offence / Should my performance perish" (26-7). Ventidius’ letter attempts to negate the possibility of a confluence of performance and the reputation of the performer. Ventidius consequently provides an important account of the process of production of Roman reputation :

While Ventidius’ letter attempts to disconnect reputation from performance, the letter that Caesar enters reading in act one, scene four--perhaps that "noted" in scene one--inscribes a connection, and confirms the Roman measurement of Antony’s performance:

For the first half of the play, barely a scene goes by without someone sending, receiving or proposing to write a letter of some kind. In each case, a letter transforms a relation either between or within Egypt and Rome. The dominant effect of letters in Antony and Cleopatra is an imperative to "look elsewhere." As such, letters often acquire qualities of personification for the addressees, evoking affective capacities which displace the relation to a level of reified physicality: they have "urgent touches" (1.2.178), and they "strongly speak to us" (179); they can "satisfy" (2.2.51-2) or physically restrain ("Your letters did withhold our breaking forth" [3.6.79]). Prior to the particular content of any one letter, their almost constant arrival and departure produces a more general effect: the dramatic world of Antony and Cleopatra seems to be held together by their circulation. Letters circumscribe the limits of the world, binding the various "theatrical" scenes--implied-virtual and actual-present--together. They contribute to the sense of the world’s smallness which, no matter how much "space enough between you" Antony makes with Caesar (2.3.22), leads the latter to conclude "we could not stall together, / In the whole world" (5.1.39-40). The first letter in the play causes a "revolution" in Antony’s desire--his "present pleasure . . . does become / The opposite of itself" (1.2.119-127), such that his response to Enobarbus’ inquiry "What’s your pleasure, sir?" is "I must with haste from hence" (128-9)--propelling him back to Rome. Antony’s look was initially directed towards Cleopatra ("No messenger but thine" [1.1.52]), and is redirected in the second scene to Rome by the letters that bear the news of Fulvia’s garboils and death and the petitions of his "contriving friends" (1.2.180). Letters have the effect of interrupting the theatrical scene present at that moment, in order to draw the addressee into another--figurative, mediated by language--scene.

One possible indication of the significance of letters in Antony and Cleopatra might be located in the determination of their degree of success by the identity of their authors. Most telling in this respect is the effect that Cleopatra’s letters appear to have. There are two scenes in which Cleopatra is portrayed as a sender of letters (1.5 and 3.3). In the first, she declares:

"It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate / Our great competitor" Caesar assures Lepidus, and immediately launches into a description of the details of Antony’s performance, as reported in a letter, which constitute his opprobrium (1.4.2-3). The term "competitor" indicates the two main poles of the relation that mutually constitutes Antony and Caesar’s Roman identities: most obviously for a contemporary reading, a relation of rivalry, but also the early modern sense of "associate" or "partnership." Thus, not only are they constantly trying to outdo one another, but they also to a certain extent mirror one another: "When such a spacious mirror’s set before him, / He needs must see himself" (5.1.34-5). The proper measure of Antony and Caesar’s relation is, as Pompey suggests, that they are "square" with one another:

"[F]or it cannot be / We shall remain in friendship," Caesar suggests; assigning the cause to the fact that "our conditions" are "So differing in their acts" (2.2.113-4). Although we may read "conditions" to refer to "dispositions," here, I believe it may be more productive to avoid the naturalisation of their enmity which such a reading would produce, and instead understand it as a "social or official position, rank." The contradiction implied in the above definition of "competitor," which drives the dynamic of emulation, is a contradiction in the ideological structure of Roman identity. Antony and Caesar are supposed to be equals, yet both are subject to a drive towards the acquisition of power that pits them against one another. Although Antony declares that "Kingdoms are clay" (1.1.35), he nonetheless promises Cleopatra that he "will piece / Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the east . . . shall call her mistress" (1.5.45-7), and from the report Caesar relates in act three, scene six, of Antony and Cleopatra’s royal spectacle, he keeps to his promise. The competition between Antony and Caesar is given a sense of inevitability; when Antony responds to the letter urging him back to Rome to renew the emulation, he explains to Cleopatra that "The strong necessity of time commands / Our services awhile" (1.3.42-3), while Caesar suggests to Octavia to:

This conclusion is only reached after the possibility of any real equality has been destroyed by Caesar’s strategy. Earlier in the play, however, two main attempts at arriving at a stable mediation of their rivalry are explored. The first is provided by Pompey’s assault on Rome. Pompey had hoped that Caesar and Lepidus would be "in Rome together / Looking for Antony" (2.1.19-20); that is, that Caesar’s letters would be ineffectual in redirecting Antony’s attention. When it becomes clear that the emulative bonds held too great a sway over Antony for this to remain the case, Pompey realises that his opposition will serve to "cement their divisions, and bind up / The petty difference" (2.1.48-9). Once defeated, however, as Enobarbus tactlessly points out, Pompey will no longer serve this purpose, and the competition will resume. When Caesar says, therefore:

Through his marriage to Octavia, the "cement of our love" attempts to contain the emulative dynamic. But, as Enobarbus predicts:

The decisive moment for the emulative struggle comes at the first defeat by Caesar at sea, in act three, scene ten. Or, more precisely, it is defeat by virtue of a failure to engage in the struggle that determines Antony’s decline. The moment at which Antony follows Cleopatra’s flight from the battle is figured as an highly emulative one, in its double sense of mutual identification and rivalry:

Caesar deterritorializes his reputation from his personal performance and substitutes lieutenants, letters, and finally Antony’s own deserted troops, as performers in his place: Pompey is first pacified by their "seal’d composition" (2.6.58-60), then defeated by Caesar’s "having made use of" Lepidus (2.5.6); Lepidus is eliminated through the accusation of letters to Pompey (3.5.9-12); and finally the mechanism of lieutenantry itself is turned against Antony, such that he appears to "spend his fury / Upon himself" (4.6.10-11). Because of this deterritorialization-substitution, Caesar enables the emulative dynamic to progress without its proper measure (in the sense of: the distance between the competing subjects; their treatment of one another; their mutual estimation of proper positions and identities) becoming subject to the vagaries of performance that upset its arrangements. Exemplary of this achievement is a remark Caesar makes at the beginning of the rapid succession of scenes that dramatise the first battle between Antony and Caesar--one of Caesar’s letters ensures the measure (moderation) of his substitutions, keeping the potential excesses of their performances under control:

"Loss" is a recurrent image in the text; Cleopatra fears she will lose Antony if she allows him his own way in all things (1.3.8-9); Antony at one point has "lost my way forever" (3.11.4); and has previously declared "if I lose mine honour, I lose myself" (3.4.22-3). Antony’s loss of self-identity is primarily figured in terms of a loss of Roman reputation and the masculinity which it confers. While berating his absence from Rome, Caesar suggests that Antony’s composition is blemished by the pleasures he indulges in (1.4.22-3). He goes on to allude to a loss of virility that accompanies these activities (the "dryness" of his bones [27], as his body become sterile, barren, substanceless). This leads to a combination of the two that describes a body and life-style without virtue:

In the sense that loss also refers to a failure to make good use of, or having been spent to no advantage, the term "idleness" resonates with these images of the ground of Antony’s masculinity. The opposition between reason and sensuality which Caesar (among others) constructs for Antony, is linked to the sense of the earth as the ground of his identity: