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Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Act 1
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Scorpion:
When the play begins, Antony is consumed by his military failure at the Battle of Actium. His cowardice when fleeing the battlefield particularly haunts him, and upon his reunion with Ventidius, he begs the man to curse him. Unable to bear listening to his friend as he indulges himself in melancholy, Ventidius refuses to help Antony dig himself further into his hole of misery, using a simile in the process:
You are too sensible already
Of what/have done, too conscious of your failings,
And like a scorpion, whipped by others first
To fury, sting yourself in mad revenge.
I would bring balm, and pour it in your wounds,
Cure your distempered mind, and heal your fortunes.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Your Kingdoms for a Kiss:
In Act 1, while trying to awaken Antony to the ways in which he has been struck and even duped by love, Ventidius criticizes his devotion to Cleopatra and hyperbolically rants about just how little it might take for Antony to give up his power to her:
Unlock with LitCharts A+They said they would not fight for Cleopatra.
Why should they fight, indeed, to make her conquer,
And make you more a slave? To gain your kingdoms,
Which, for a kiss at your next midnight feast,
You’ll sell to her? Then she new names her jewels,
And calls this diamond such or such a tax;
Each pendant in her ear shall be a province.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Portentous Happenings:
John Dryden begins Act 1 of All For Love with a series of omens that set an ominous mood, foreshadowing the doomed plot about to unfold before the audience. The opening lines uttered by the priest Serapion at the Temple of Isis are the first of many signs of danger to come:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent
That they have lost their name. Our fruitful Nile
Flowed ere the wonted season, with a torrent
So unexpected and so wondrous fierce
That the wild deluge overtook the haste
Even of the hinds that watched it: men and beasts
Were borne above the tops of trees that grew
On th’utmost margin of the watermark.
Then with so swift an ebb the flood drove backward,
It slipped from underneath the scaly herd:
Here monstrous phocae panted on the shore;
Forsaken dolphins there with their broad tails
Lay lashing the departing waves; hard by 'em,
Sea-horses floundering in the slimy mud
Tossed up their heads and dashed the ooze about 'em.
Related Themes:
Act 3
Explanation and Analysis—Take Thy Wish:
In Act 3, Cleopatra and Octavia’s differing opinions on the conflict between love and honor take center stage as the pair confront each other in person for the first time. As their competition (to determine which of the two has the worse fate in their relationships with Antony) concludes, Octavia makes the following portentous statement, foreshadowing the fact that Cleopatra will be her own undoing:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Cleopatra: There wants but life, and that too I would lose
For him I love.Octavia: Be’t so, then; take thy wish.
Related Themes:
