how does the past help to

[jojojojoanne]

symbolise the future in antony and cleopatras world?

[squarebear]

I would post this in Arts & Literature to be honest, as you will only get snide comments and abuse here.

[B00]

That's a bit of a sweeping assumption of us all here in CB isn't it Square?

And i thought we were friends :-(

But yes, actually Square's right, slap this in Art & Lit.

[joggerjayne]

I'm not sure that it does ... or even that it can.

Is this an actual essay question ?

[legendgreeny]

isnt it anthony ?

[joggerjayne]

Well, the names should be capitalised, and there needs to be an apostrophe, if we're being picky.

[legendgreeny]

Ooops


Try this.


I believe that history may teach, not the multitude, which will never learn anything from it, but, impelled by the same passions, will always repeat the same errors and the same foolishnesses; but the chosen few, who, charged with directing the game of history, have concern in knowing as well as they can its inner law. Taken in this way, history may be a great teacher, in its every page, every line, and the study of the legend of Antony and Cleopatra may itself even serve to prepare the spirit of a diplomat, who must treat between state and state the complicated economic and political affairs of the modern world. And so, in conclusion, history and life interchange mutual services; life teaches history, and history, life; observing the present, we help ourselves to know the past, and from the study of the past we can return to our present the better tempered and prepared to observe and comprehend it. In present and in past, history can form a kind of wisdom set apart, in a certain sense aristocratic, above what the masses know, at least as to the universal laws that govern the life of nations.

[joggerjayne]

?

[joggerjayne]

That passage suggests that the past can teach, and give guidance, about the future ...

... but not "symbolise" it.

I stand by my original point ...

I'm not sure that the past can "symbolise" the future ...

... and I don't think it does in Tony and Cleo.