Re-visiting Orientalism in Antony and Cleopatra

Abstract

Despite the fact that we have been presented with a fixed opposition between the Occident and the Orient, the dynamics of Said’s Orientalism are not valid within the context of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when England was not yet an Empire. In Antony and Cleopatra, gender hierarchy and racial hierarchy are intertwined and are embedded in the love relationship between Antony and Cleopatra. Throughout this period, the Ottoman Empire was the dominant superpower. Europe could not establish any response against this Islamic enemy. In this essay, I argue that, overturning the imperial and gender hierarchies, invokes European anxieties with respect to the rising power of Islam. Efforts against feminization, ‘turning Turk’ and ‘going native’ of Englishmen proves the fear of the authorities from the dominating East.