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Definition of Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations intended to emphasize a point... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements... read full definition
Act 2
Explanation and Analysis—Mark Antony:
In Act 4, Caesar promises Cleopatra that he will send Mark Antony to Egypt for her benefit. Cleopatra romanticizes Antony to an extreme, unwilling to hear a single negative comment about him from Caesar, going so far as to metaphorically and hyperbolically deify him:
CAESAR: [Mark Antony] is in excellent condition—considering how much he eats and drinks.
CLEOPATRA: Oh, you must not say common, earthly things about him; for I love him. He is a god.
Cleopatra's deification of Mark Antony as her lover through a hyperbolic metaphor is an important element of Antony and Cleopatra, the Shakespeare play for which Caesar and Cleopatra serves as a prequel. Shaw's choice to include this deification is consistent with Shakespeare's interpretation of her character as an older woman.
If one considers this play in the context of its genre—being, of course, both a history play and a satire—this passage provides interesting commentary on the pervasive romanticization of historical figures. Cleopatra would prefer to picture Antony in her mind as the ideal man: a person without mundane vices that ordinary citizens indulge in. In the preface Shaw wrote to the play, he notes that the vice of lustful overindulgence—which Shakespeare portrays as Antony's fatal flaw in Antony and Cleopatra—is neither grand nor noble but rather something that any person could suffer from. Antony's struggle marks him as ordinary, not extraordinary. Cleopatra resists this imposed mundanity on her romanticized image of Antony, as do the writers of history plays for their respective subjects.
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