All For love
About author
John Dryden(1631–1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was appointed England's first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.
Major Works
(1)An Essay of Dramatick Poesie(1668)
(2) Absalom and Achitophel(1681)
(3) Mac Flecknoe(1682)
All For Love as a Heroic Tragedy
All for Love; or, the World Well Lost, is a 1677 heroic drama by John Dryden which is now his best-known and most performed play. It is a five acts tragedy written in blank verse. It is an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, and focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine. The theme of the drama turns on the Conflict between love and honour - between love for Cleopatra and Antony's duty towards his wife Octavia. Antony is described in the images that suggest his superhuman qualities. Dryden adopts blank verse and seeks to imitate the elevated style of Shakespeare. In the preface to All for Love, Dryden says that he has imitated Shakespeare's style but All for Love is regarded as a heroic play.
“In my style, I have professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare, which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme”.
Themes of All For Love
(1) Love Vs. Honor or Duty
This aspect of heroic drama is portrayed largely through two additional characters, beside Antony of course. Through Ventidius and Octavia, Dryden shows the retention of the heroic conflict of passion(love) versus honor as he does in his other Heroic plays. Antony’s words to Octavia mark a serious struggle between love and duty too: ‘I can never be conquered but by love;/ And you do all for duty’.
In Cleopatra’s portrayal too Dryden displays the characteristics of the heroic play. She is model perfection. Nowhere in the play not even when she is banished, has she deviated from her steadfast love for Antony. She says,
“I love you more, even now you are unkind Than you have loved me most”
She considers her love so sacred that even the pretence of love she displays for Dollabella is done with great reluctance. Such a portrayal of heroine of perfectionis found only in heroic plays.
(2) Manipulation and Persuasion
Many of the characters seek to manipulate or persuade one another in different ways. Ventidius tries to persuade Antony to leave Egypt several times in the play. Dolabella and Octavia also undertake to convince him to leave Cleopatra behind. Meanwhile, Cleopatra and her attendants, particularly Alexas, seek to strategize about how to keep Antony there. Time and time again, Alexas comes up with plots to keep Cleopatra and Antony together, manipulating information in order to ensure the union. Indeed, Ventidius does this also, persuading Antony that Dolabella and Cleopatra are having an affair when they are not.
(3) Power and Passion
The play concerns two influential leaders, Antony, a Roman leader, and Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. Both of these rulers wield a tremendous amount of power, but when the play opens, their power is faltering as a result of their affair. Cleopatra's attendants want her to continue her affair with Antony in order to sustain her power over Rome, while Antony's advisors want him to disengage from Cleopatra as he is neglecting his loyalty to the Roman republic. Thus, the force that is in direct conflict with love is power and its preservation.
Perhaps the most important theme in the play, and what keeps Cleopatra and Antony in a magnetic pull towards one another the entire time, is passion. Both of the lovers feel passionately—in both a sexual and romantic sense—towards one another. The passion they feel for one another exceeds all reason, and it is what keeps Cleopatra and Antony continually making poor decisions on behalf of their respective countries.
Passion, throughout the play, wins out against reason time and time again. Whenever Antony is on the brink of leaving Egypt once and for all, he is once again called back by his passion for Cleopatra. Likewise, at the end, after Antony has died, Cleopatra determines that she would rather die than live under Caesar. She chooses death over life because of her passionate love of Antony.\
Jealousy:
In a last-ditch effort to win Antony back, Cleopatra takes Alexas' advice and makes an attempt to make him jealous. She judges that jealous love is not as pure as real love, but goes along with the plan to a point. Indeed, jealousy is a major currency and theme in the play, especially in terms of how it pertains to love. Antony is jealous of Cleopatra and Dolabella's connection even though Dolabella is a trusted and beloved friend. Additionally, Octavia is jealous of the love that Antony gives so freely to Cleopatra, but refuses to give to her.
Duty:
One of the main ways that Antony's advisors try to convince him to leave Egypt is by invoking the importance of duty. They often tell him that he needs to give up his individual romantic freedom in order to do what is best for Rome, but he is unable to pull himself away. Octavia, his wife, visits him and pleads with him that it is his duty to return to his family. She does not claim to be able to ignite the same passion that Cleopatra does, instead suggesting that it is her duty as a wife to remain loyal to him. Throughout the play, the Roman characters invoke the importance of duty, even when Antony is unable to access his own sense of obligation.
Death
Ending with death is a most important feature of tragedy. “All for Love” ends with death of hero and heroine fulfilling this convention of tragedy. Altogether five people commit suicide in the last act of the play- Antony, Cleopatra, Ventidius and two maids. All of them do this for their affection and regard for someone. The suicide of Antony and Cleopatra are historical facts.
Conclusion
All For Love is a full-fledged Heroic play and prototype to Sentimental Tragedy. Dryden’s craftsmanship as a brilliant playwright and a highly skilled poet is delicately latent in his play and evidently recognized by many.
