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Adison Godfrey
Dr. Sullivan
English 301M
Fall 2014
Memory and Identity in Shakespeare and Marlowe
Both Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra and Marlowes Dido, Queen of
Carthage are concerned with notions of identity and memory. On the surface, both plays
explore the ways in which masculine martial identity is affected by desire, as both Antony
and Aeneas are great heroes undone, to some extent, by their desire; however, the
exploration of identity goes beyond that. Identities are recasted and advanced at different
points throughout both plays; characters in both plays take measures to ensure that others
will be remembered in a certain way, and are concerned with the way that they
themselves will be remembered. Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra and Marlowes
Dido, Queen of Carthage are thus fundamentally concerned with the ways in which both
identities and memories are constructed.
Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra is full of references to Cleopatras
emasculating effect on Antony (Adelman 177). Antonys identity as a warrior becomes
undermined by a seductive queen: the very opening lines of the play state that his
captains heart, / Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst / The buckles on his
breast, reneges all temper, / And is become the bellows and the fan / To cool a gipsys
lust (1.1.6-10). Antony had once resembled Mars and devoted all of his attention to his
troops, but is now preoccupied with Cleopatra; his heart had once beat strongly enough
during war to burst through his armor, but now its only purpose is to please Cleopatra.

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He is unmanned by his desire, but the Romans, anxious to preserve their own sense of
what it means to be a Roman, recast his identity when he is acting less like a Roman
martial hero: in these moments, he is not Antony (1.1.59). Throughout the play, the
Romans essentially construct Antonys masculine identity. His identity is configured in
terms of his country; [he] is constituted first and foremost as a Roman, and the self he
forgets in his love affair with Cleopatra is emphatically a Roman one (Sullivan 89).
Antony buys into and internalizes this Roman valuation: as he is looking at the shifting
clouds, he states, Here I am Antony, / Yet cannot hold this visible shape [] / O thy vile
lady, / She has robbed me of my sword! (4.15.13-24). Antonys suicide can be
understood as a way in which he attempts to recuperate and assert his lost martial
Romanness (Sullivan 93). As he falls upon his sword, he states that he is a Roman by a
Roman / Valiantly vanquished (4.16.59-60); he is both a Roman as he is being killed and
a Roman as he is doing the killing. In this way, Antony hopes that the manner of his
death will restore to him the masculinity accorded by his Roman martial identity, thus
reversing his emasculation by Cleopatra.
The relationship between masculine martial identity and desire is different in
Dido, Queen of Carthage. Cleopatra completely unmans Antony; however, Dido restores
Aeneass sense of self. Rather than becoming unmanned by his desire, Aeneas is
unmanned by his grief: he does not appear to know who he is after the fall of Troy,
stating, Sometime I was a Trojan [] / But Troy is not. What shall I say I am? (2.1.7576). Dido restores to him the sense of masculine martial identity that he is lacking when
he first arrives in Carthage. She states, Warlike Aeneas, and in these base robes? / []
Aeneas is Aeneas, were he clad / In weeds as bad as ever Irus ware (2.1.79-85). She

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instructs him to remember who he is, shoring up his sense of heroic identity, and he
rediscovers himself: he begins to build a Carthaginian wall, stating that he will build a
statelier Troy in Carthage (5.1.2). Though Aeneass desire keeps him from initially
pursuing his destiny in ItalyAchates chides him, stating that dalliance doth consume
our soldiers strength / And wanton motions of alluring eyes / Effeminate our minds
inured to war (4.3.34-36)Dido does help Aeneas to regain his status as a great warrior.
As a result, he is able to resume his quest and become the Vergilian hero that he is in
the Aeneid, although he does rely on others in order to realize this heroic identity
(Crowley 424). This outcome reveals a key difference between identity in Antony and
Cleopatra and Dido, Queen of Carthage: Cleopatra diminishes Antonys masculine
martial identity while Dido advances Aeneass.
While Antony and Aeneas do differ in this respect, they are similar in the fact that
they both engage in self-forgetting. Antonys self-forgetting is primarily a forgetting of
his country (Sullivan 89). It is precisely this self-forgetting that Philo refers to in the
opening lines of the play; in Antony, it is possible to see the triple pillar of the world
transformed / Into a strumpets fool (1.1.12-13). Antony forgets his Roman identity in
favor of Cleopatra, a fact that Caesar also alludes to. He likens Antony to boys who
pawn their experience to their present pleasure; / And so rebel to judgement (1.4.3233), as Antony chooses to forget himself and his better judgment for the sake of pleasure.
Similarly, Aeneass identity is also bound up in notions of country, and he forgets himself
because he has fundamentally identified himself as a Trojan. Since his identity has been
situated in relation to Troy, he does not know who he is when Troy no longer exists
(2.1.75-76). Dido helps restore his sense of self but, like Antony, Aeneas then forgets his

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duty in favor of pleasure, desiring to remain in Carthage with her. The gods have to
intervene when he begins building a Roman wall in Carthage: Hermes tells Aeneas that
he has forgotten himself, stating that he is too too forgetful of [his] own affairs (5.1.30).
Both Antony and Aeneas engage in self-forgetting, but they appear to have remembered
themselves by the conclusion of their respective plays. Antony hopes to remember
himselfthat is, restore his identity as a Roman[through his suicide] (Sullivan 93),
defining himself as a Roman by a Roman, / Valiantly vanquished (4.16.59-60). In this
way, Antonys suicide is essentially his final act of self-remembering (Sullivan 93).
Likewise, Aeneas also remembers himself by the end of Dido, Queen of Carthage; after
Hermess intervention, he states that he will haste unto Lavinian shore, / And raise a new
foundation to old Troy (5.1.78-79). He resumes his quest, and one can assume that he
does succeed in fulfilling his destiny.
In Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra, identity and memory are also explored
through two different versions of Antony: Antony as Antony, and Antony as he is
remembered. Antony as Antony is characterized by his various vacillations, in regards to
both women and combat. Antony is initially married to Fulvia, but he also has a
relationship with Cleopatra; after Fulvias death, he says that he is not bound to Cleopatra
and marries Octavia (2.2.130), only to return to Cleopatra as soon as she [nods] him to
her (3.6.66). Similarly, first Antony flees from the battle at sea to chase after Cleopatra
(3.10.18-20); then he demonstrates martial heroism when he forces Caesars men to
retreat, [driving] them home / With clouts about their heads (4.8.2-3); then he fails to
pursue them and ultimately loses the battle, bidding his men to retreat (4.13.15). There is
a back-and-forth that exists within Antonys character, but he does not want to be

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remembered for these vacillations. Antony wants to be remembered for something other
than he was, [fantasizing] a stability of identity to be reclaimed through suicide
(Sullivan 99). In this way, Antony uses suicide as an assertion of identity: he attempts to
set the terms for how he will be remembered by others, desiring to be remembered as the
Roman martial exemplar he once was.
The contrast between Antony as Antony and Antony as he is remembered
becomes especially evident in the retrospective depictions of Antony after his death by
Cleopatra and Caesar. After his death, Cleopatra states that his legs bestrid the ocean;
his reared arm / Crested the world (5.2.81-82). She has an idealizing vision of
Antony (Adelman 174); when she asks Dolabella whether such a man truly existed,
Dolabella replies, Gentle madam, no (5.2.93). The Antony that exists in Cleopatras
eulogy is proven to be discontinuous with the Antony we see elsewhere in the play
(Sullivan 103). Similarly, Caesar also idealizes Antony after his death. Despite the fact
that they had been at war with one another, he states that the death of Antony / Is not a
single doom; in that name lay / A moiety of the world (4.16.17-19). He goes on to give
his own account of Antony, referring to him as a brother, competitor, friend, companion,
and mate in empire (4.16.42-44). These idealized depictions of Antony contribute to the
creation of a gap, a way in which the play seems poised between acceptance and
rejection of [these claims] (Adelman 175): these idealizations provide the audience with
a construction of Antony after his death that is different from the Antony they actually
saw.
This is not the only time that Caesar remembers Antony, however; he remembers
Antony at different points, and in different ways, throughout the play. Caesar initially

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remembers Antony as one who was borne so like a soldier (1.4.70), [drinking] / the
stale of horses, and the gilded puddle / Which beasts would cough at (1.4.61-63). In this
instance, his memories of Antony directly contrast with the way he believes Antony is
acting at present: not more manlike / Than Cleopatra (1.3.5-6). Despite this, when
Caesar hears the news of Antonys death, he once again chooses to remember Antony as a
great hero: he states that the breaking of so great a thing should make / A greater crack
(4.16.14-15). The shift in Caesars memories of Antony occurs after Cleopatras suicide.
Caesar reconstitutes their relationship, shifting the two of them from the realm of politics
into the realm of love: he states that Cleopatra shall be buried by her Antony. / No grave
upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous (5.2.348-350). In this way, it is Caesars
voice that not only ends the play but that becomes the voice of history (Sullivan 106).
Caesar recasts Antony and Cleopatras relationship after their deaths in an attempt to
neutralize the problem that there could be another Antony (5.2.337), and that Romans
are susceptible to these desires; he intends to ensure that the story of Antony and
Cleopatra is remembered as a great love story in which no other Roman is implicated.
Memory also plays a significant role in Dido, Queen of Carthage, particularly in
the final scene. After Aeneas leaves her, Dido burns relics of Aeneas, stating,
Here lie the sword that in the darksome cave
He drew and swore by to be true to me:
Thou shalt burn first, thy crime is worse than his.
Here lie the garment which I clothed him in
When first he came on shore: perish thou too.
These letters, lines, and perjured papers all

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Shall burn to cinders in this precious flame. (5.1.295-301)
Dido effectively destroys all traces of Aeneas, and she proceeds to throw herself onto the
fire afterwards. This is not a blind act; Dido has a particular motive. She states, Now,
Dido, with these relics burn thyself, / And make Aeneas famous through the world / For
perjury and slaughter of a queen (5.1.292-294). By destroying all traces of Aeneas, she
intends to create a blank slate onto which she can project her own version of him.
Though Dido does restore Aeneas to himself initially, she recasts his identity during the
final scene and aligns him with the Ovidian, rather than Vergilian, Aeneas. Ovids
Heroides and Metamorphoses sympathize with Dido [] rather than with Aeneas
(Crowley 409), and the Ovidian Aeneas becomes famous for being unfaithful, shiftless,
and an oath-breaker. In Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage, Dido recasts Aeneass
identity in an attempt to ensure that he will be remembered in this way; Marlowes Dido,
like Ovids, wants to bend [Aeneass] immortal fame toward infamy (Crowley 434).
There is also a way in which Marlowes play explores the notion of traumatic
memory. From Vergils Aeneid to Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage, there is a crucial
difference in the depiction of Aeneass arrival in Carthage. In the Aeneid, when Aeneas
first arrives, he sees the fall of Troy depicted on Carthages walls and [feeds] his spirit
on empty, lifeless pictures, / [] as he sees once more the fighters circling Troy (1.563565). Aeneas feeds himself on these memories; they sustain him, [rejuvenating] his
soul (Crowley 422). As a result, Aeneas doubles down on his heroic identity, telling
Dido, Here I am before you, the man you are looking for. / Aeneas the Trojan (1.711712). In Dido, Queen of Carthage, however, Aeneas comes across a statue of Priam and
his memories sink him into a deeper despair. He states, Ah, Troy is sacked, and Priamus

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dead, / And why should poor Aeneas be alive? (2.1.33-34). Rather than reinforcing his
heroic identity, Aeneas seems to have lost sight of himself: he states, Sometime I was a
Trojan, might queen, / But Troy is not. What shall I say I am? (2.1.75-76). This selfabandonment undermines Aeneass heroic identity and epic mission (Mitsi 446). In
this way, memory in Marlowes play is not cathartic but traumatic (Mitsi 446), an idea
that is reinforced when Aeneas tells Dido that the memory of Troy beats forth [his]
senses from [his] troubled soul (2.1.116). The memory of Troy that Priams statue
evokes thus functions differently in Dido, Queen of Carthage than in Vergils Aeneid:
rather than sustaining Aeneas and reinforcing his heroic identity, his memory is what
undoes him.
There is a clear distinction between Aeneas and Aeneas in Dido, Queen of
Carthage, much as there is a distinction between Antony as Antony and Antony as he is
remembered in Antony and Cleopatra. Marlowes Aeneas differs from the ever-present
idea of [Vergils] Aeneas (Crowley 410). Vergils Aeneas is essentially the preeminent
exemplary hero in the Renaissance tradition. He is characterized by his strong sense of
duty, military heroism, and leadership; his only black mark is his sojourn with Dido,
which ultimately becomes a credit to him as he is able to overcome his desire and
proceed to Italy. In Dido, Queen of Carthage, Dido is familiar with this Aeneas before
meeting Aeneas himself: when he first arrives in Carthage, Dido addresses him as
warlike Aeneas (2.1.79), a way in which his reputation [] precedes him (Crowley
426). Moreover, this is the version of Aeneas that Dido falls for; she falls for Aeneas,
not the Aeneas she meets on stage (Crowley 426). This notion is reinforced by one of
the key differences between Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage and Vergils Aeneid: in

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Dido, Queen of Carthage, Dido expresses interest in Aeneas before she is struck by
Cupid. She dresses Aeneas in the clothing of her former husband immediately upon his
arrival in Carthage (2.1.80); shortly after, she tells Ascanius that he will be her son
(2.1.97). Aeneass Vergilian reputation as a martial hero precedes him, and Dido is
taken less with the character Aeneas than with the notion of [empery] that she associates
with Aeneas (Crowley 426)she even openly admits that she wants Aeneas to stay in
Carthage to war against [her] bordering enemies (3.1.134). Dido is infatuated with
Aeneas, but he proves to be unattainable; for Aeneas to act as the Vergilian hero he is
reputed to be, he must leave Carthage and resume his heroic duty.
Both Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra and Marlowes Dido, Queen of
Carthage explore the ways in which identities and memories are constructed. Both plays
explore how masculine martial identity is affected by desire; how great heroes engage in
the act of self-forgetting; and how identities are recasted and advanced at different points
in order to ensure that characters are remembered in a certain way. While there are ways
in which notions of identity and memory differ from one play to the next, both plays are
fundamentally concerned not only with identity and memory themselves, but also with
the ways in which these identities and memories are constructed.

Bibliography

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Adelman, Janet. Suffocating Mothers. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Crowley, Timothy D. Arms and the Boy: Marlowes Aeneas and the Parody of
Imitation in Dido, Queen of Carthage. English Literary Renaissance 38.3
(2008): 408-38.
Sullivan,GarrettA.,Jr.MemoryandForgettinginEnglishRenaissanceDrama.
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Marlowe, Christopher. Dido, Queen of Carthage. In The Complete Plays. Edited by
Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.
Mitsi, Efterpi. What is this but stone? Priams statue in Marlowes Dido, Queen of
Carthage. Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry 27.4 (2011): 44349.
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