All for Love

play by Dryden

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June 18, 2026

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"All for Love" is a tragedy by John Dryden, written in 1677. It is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" and focuses on the tragic love affair between Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The play explores themes of love, honor, and political conflict, culminating in the lovers' suicides rather than face defeat and capture by Octavius. Dryden's version is noted for its use of blank verse and its exploration of the characters' psychological states, offering a more neoclassical interpretation than Shakespeare's original.12

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John Dryden
Writing for the stage
…different mode was his tragedy All for Love (1677), based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and written in a flowing but controlled blank verse. He had earlier adapted The Tempest (1667), and later he reworked yet another Shakespeare play, Troilus and Cressida (1679). Dryden had now entered what may be…
Read More
…different mode was his tragedy All for Love (1677), based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and written in a flowing but controlled blank verse. He had earlier adapted The Tempest (1667), and later he reworked yet another Shakespeare play, Troilus and Cressida (1679). Dryden had now entered what may be…
Read More

tragedy
The English heroic play
” In All for Love the moral is all too clear: Antony must choose between the path of honour and his illicit passion for Cleopatra. He chooses Cleopatra, and they are both destroyed. Only Dryden’s poetry, with its air of emotional argumentation, manages to convey human complexities…
Read More
” In All for Love the moral is all too clear: Antony must choose between the path of honour and his illicit passion for Cleopatra. He chooses Cleopatra, and they are both destroyed. Only Dryden’s poetry, with its air of emotional argumentation, manages to convey human complexities…
Read More