Antony and Cleopatra is a historical play by William Shakespeare first performed in 1607 or 1608 and first printed in 1623. The source for the story is Plutarch's "Life of Marcus Antonius". Shakespeare worked closely from this work and astonishing numbers of phrases within Shakespeare's play are taken directly Thomas North's translation of the prose.
It is believed that Shakespeare wrote "Antony and Cleopatra" in 1606 after Macbeth and it is obviously one of his greatest plays. Though not in the first class of Shakespeare's production, it stands next to them, and is perhaps the finest of his historical plays, that is, those in which he made poetry the organ of history, and assumed a certain tone of character and sentiment, in conformity to known facts, instead of trusting to his observations of general nature or to the unlimited indulgence of his own fancy.
He wrote his play mostly based upon some historical facts, which helps forming the genre of the play. On the other hand, we can say that this suggests also a problem about identifying the genre of the play because besides being a historical play, "Antony and Cleopatra" is at the same time a tragedy and while some critics say that it is a historical play, the others oppose the idea claiming that it is totally a tragedy because of its features. According to me, the play is both a historical play and a tragedy. Although the play smoothly contains all Shakespearean skills and could almost be classified as a history, comedy, or tragedy, the dominant mode of tragedy emerges from the clash of demands between the private life and the public. In addition, the play is not really moralistic. It has more to do with awareness of how others see one.
When we examine "Antony and Cleopatra" the background of the play (the translation of Plutarc's work) is easily noticed for the plot of the play also remains close to North's history although many of the characters are Shakespeare's creation.
