Becoming Cleopatra

This article investigates the ramifications of the word ‘become’ as it is deployed in Antony and Cleopatra, the term being invested with several distinct meanings which Shakespeare pursues the implications of and at the same time plays off against one another. It is argued that the play is deeply concerned with questions of an ontological nature, and that the contraposition between the rival perspectives of Rome and Egypt reflects a tension between the different conceptions of being, becoming, and identity articulated within it.