Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions

by Lucy Hughes - Hallett (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $4.65

  In her own lifetime and in the 2000 years since her death, the image of Cleopatra has been repeatedly reinvented, each time in a form that fits the prejudices and fantasies of the age that produced it. This book gives an account of the way in which different generations have viewed Cleopatra.

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $4.22

  In the 2000 years since Cleopatra's death she has been recreated over and over again, each time in a form that fits the prejudices and fantasies of the age that produced it. To Chaucer she was the model of a good wife, while to Cecil B.De Mille she was the wickedest woman in all history ; to the Arabic historian Al-Masudi she was a scholar and a sage; to George Bernard Shaw an emotionally retarded sex-kitten. These fantastic Cleopatras can be read as mirror-images of the culture that produced them. This book is about them, and also about politics - sexual, racial and constitutional - and about morality, neurosis and desire. The author is a journalist and critic who won the 1980 Catherine Pakenham Award as a feature writer with Vogue .