Textuality » 4ALS Textuality
The main feature of Shakespeare’s poetry is the intention to underline the transformation process of the world, from the Middle Ages to the Modern Ages. This is the reason why Shakespeare, in his tragedies, used to mix different aspects: in the Antony and Cleopatra’s first scene of the first act, for example, the speaking voice refers to Mars, a mythological divinity. So he refers both to themes of classical cultures and to some aspects of the Renaissance, like Antony’s curiosity and desire to “find out a new heaven and a new earth”. Another aspect that reminds to Renaissance culture is that humans began to be considered not only for their soul, but for their humans qualities: life wasn’t a transition period in which men’s objective was salvation, because there was a body too, that implies pleasure (“There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?”).