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Explore the Ways In Which Shakespeare Presents Cleopatra To an Elizabethan Audience an Elizabethan Audience Would Have Already Had Preconceived Ideas About Cleopatra, As This Play Is Based On a True Story, and Cleopatra Was Commented On In ‘North
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EXPLORE THE WAYS IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE PRESENTS CLEOPATRA TO AN ELIZABETHAN AUDIENCE An Elizabethan audience would have already had preconceived ideas about Cleopatra, as this play is based on a true story, and Cleopatra was commented on in 'North's Plutarch', as a "Pesilent plague", meaning that she brings death, panic and havoc to wherever she went. Also the audience would have already had preconceived ideas of Cleopatra, due to oral stories, which were passed from generation to generation. In these stories, she was addressed as a high-class prostitute, who lured men, into her bed, so that she could sleep with them to get whatever she wanted, this included Caesar, She had no morality. The stories say that she seduced Antony, and she overwhelmed him. The audience therefore would have been biased against Cleopatra and feel sympathy for Antony. Most of these stories would have been passed on by word of mouth...
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