All For Love
by John Dryden

Name: All For Love
Brand: John Dryden
SKU: 9780713671056
Rating: 3.39 (1154 reviews)

All For Love Book Cover — All For Love Cover

Highlights

British

What readers are saying

Readers have mixed feelings about this adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra. While many enjoy the dramatic interpretation and find it a fresh take on a classic story, others feel it lacks the depth and quality of Shakespeare's original. Several note the play’s themes of love and conflict resonate, but some criticize its execution and character portrayals.

Dramatically engagingThemes of love and conflictSuperior character momentsLacks depth compared to ShakespeareSome find it hard to understand

Synopsis

Although John Dryden the poet is best known for his alexandrine epics, John Dryden the playwright is most honored for this blank verse tragedy.

The summit of Dryden’s dramatic art, All for Love (1677) is a spectacle of passion as felt, feared, and disputed in the suspicious years following the English Civil War.

Due to its dramatic compression and elegance, All for Love is one of the most enduring plays of the Restoration repertory.

It was so successful that in the eighteenth century Dryden’s tragedy drove Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra from the stage.

The play depicts the catastrophic passion of Cleopatra and Marc Antony, who could not be conquered but by love.

Fidelity to family and friends, adherence to codes of honor, national loyalties, and the rule of law compete with each other, tearing the world with violence.