Modern Age - Winter 2017 - 82

MODERN AGE

WINTER 2017

relative, generated by the arbitrary impulses of the imagination
with no basis in a permanent order of human nature. It is not my
purpose here to refute the latter proposition, because it renders
not only our specific question about literature but life itself inconsequential. From the first perspective, however, Dr. Johnson and
Wimsatt judge that an admirable artistic achievement-a "good"
novel, for instance-may be morally "bad." Johnson reproves
Shakespeare for insufficient vigilance in shaping his plays according to moral standards, and Wimsatt offers Antony and Cleopatra
as an example of an acknowledged dramatic masterpiece that is
fundamentally immoral.
Wimsatt quotes Cleopatra's speech as she prepares to take her
own life-"Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have / Immortal
longings in me . . ." (5.2.280-81ff.)-and remarks upon the seductive wickedness that she embodies:
There is no escaping the fact that the poetic splendor of this play,
and in particular of its concluding scenes, is something which
exists in closest juncture with the acts of suicide and with the
whole glorified story of passion. The poetic values are strictly
dependent-if not upon the immorality as such-yet upon the
immoral acts. Even though, or rather because, the play pleads for
certain evil choices, it presents these choices in all their mature
interest and capacity to arouse human sympathy. The motives are
wrong, but they are not base, silly, or degenerate. They are not
lacking in the positive being of deep and complex human desire.
It is not possible to despise Antony and Cleopatra.19

Like The English Patient, Antony and Cleopatra is a kind of anti-Casablanca: it suggests that personal desire is more important than
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Modern Age - Winter 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2017

Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2017 - Cover1
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Modern Age - Winter 2017 - Contents
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