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“Since Cleopatra Died” by Neil Powell discusses the importance of context in many different works of Shakespeare. The author begins by pointing out the concept of context and tense within the first few lines, stating that the words “Since Cleopatra Died” are devastating because Marc Antony’s understanding of the context is misunderstood. He commits suicide under the supposition that Cleopatra died, yet she is alive (Powell 1). Given this example, the author vehemently asserts that “tenses matter, which is why their misuse grates so dreadfully” (Powell 1). Shakespeare used tense quite often in his plays for word-play, comical relief, sarcasm, and drama, which served to either trick the characters into believing a falsehood or allowing the audience to understand something before a character did. Therefore, the misuse of tense and context in Shakespeare can drastically change the meaning of any of his plays, even among the characters in the plays themselves. Powell references Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra to provide several points about the importance of tense in the plays. For example, in a segment from Hamlet, Powell shows that the quote “‘She should have died hereafter…Not ‘she shouldn’t have died’ nor even ‘I wish she hadn’t died, but ‘She ought to have waited until later’”(Powell 1). Powell goes on to explain that Shakespeare used a mixture of tenses for plot points, as in Antony and Cleopatra when Antony misunderstands the tense of Cleopatra’s death and kills himself because of it. As such, to understand the correct tense is to understand Shakespeare’s specific meaning in his plays.
However, meaning is also elusive. Although tense is important with any reading, so is the emphasis (Norton 2009). In Shakespearean plays, much is left open to emphasis and meaning due to the lack of certain punctuations, emphases, and, even, context. No more is this true than in any reading of Shakespeare’s plays in which much is left to the imagination of the readers, such as how a word will be emphasized. Shakespeare was notorious for leaving out acting cues. As such, even tense can be misconstrued easily, though Powell quite ignores this in favor of explaining the various examples of tense in a select few Shakespearean plays. I believe that this is an immense weak point in Powell’s argument because it ignores many of Shakespeare’s other plays in which tense and context are largely confusing due, in no small part, to a lack of emphasis and acting commands. Powell also sticks to only a few examples from select plays, which completely disregards the differing examples from other works of Shakespeare and minimizes Powell’s points. Despite the lack of oversight on this one issue, Powell can create a persuasive argument for readers to spend more time understanding Shakespeare’s tenses, rather than speedily reading through the plays and dramatically misunderstanding their meaning them. In this, Powell makes a very strong point that anyone studying Shakespeare should have to read it several times, studying it immensely, before completely comprehending the English used in his works of literature.
Since Cleopatra Died can be of interest to scholarly peers due to its central argument of the importance of understanding Shakespeare. As Powell points out in his essay, there are many different facets to understanding Shakespearean literature and one of particular importance is the ability to fully comprehend the use of tense in his plays. If one is studying Shakespeare, it would behoove them to assess Powell’s argument to be able to keep the value of tense in mind when reading Shakespeare.
References
Powell, N. (2010). Since cleopatra died. PN review, 36(3).
The Norton Anthology of World Literature. (2009). New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company.
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