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Cleopatra: Her History, Her Myth
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About This Book
A feminist reinterpretation of the myths surrounding Cleopatra casts new light on the Egyptian queen and her legacy "A lucid and persuasive reinterpretation. Readers won't see Cleopatra the same way again."— Publishers Weekly "Where Prose really her critiques of the cultural depictions of Cleopatra."—Allison Arieff, San Francisco Chronicle The siren passionately in love with Mark Antony, the seductress who allegedly rolled out of a carpet she had herself smuggled in to see Caesar, Cleopatra is a figure shrouded in myth. Beyond the legends immortalized by Plutarch, Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and others, there are no journals or letters written by Cleopatra herself. All we have to tell her story are words written by others. What has it meant for our understanding of Cleopatra to have had her story told by writers who had a political agenda, authors who distrusted her motives, and historians who believed she was a liar? Francine Prose delves into ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, as well as modern representations of Cleopatra in art, theater, and film, to challenge narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offer a new interpretation of Cleopatra's history through the lens of our current era.
Reviews
"The author's solution to [Cleopatra's] defamatory treatment is to assume, conversely, rectitude and astuteness ..."
"Readers won't see Cleopatra the same way again."
"A thoughtful, sympathetic portrait of a legendary historical figure."
"A gorgeous novelist and prolific biographer...Prose is here, of necessity, mostly reassembling the research of others."
"Prose asserts that Cleopatra was intelligent and effective, but she doesn't offer historical evidence to back up those claims ..."
"In many respects, in fact, it's less interesting and certainly less detailed than Cleopatra's Wikipedia entries."
"Prose elucidates historical and cultural complexities, separates facts from fantasy, shares vivid and arresting intimate details, and brings humor and 'human warmth' to her corrective portrait of this extraordinarily brilliant and heroic ruler."
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