I've always been fascinated by Cleopatra. Initially, as a young woman, it was that she was a queen and lived in an incredibly interesting ancient world. As I got older, it became clear that her story was refracted through multiple lenses - cultural, historical, and gender, to name a few - making it challenging to approach her as a human. Stacy Schiff's 2010 Pulitzer prize-winning biography, "Cleopatra: A Life," did an excellent job of historically analyzing Cleopatra and placing her in the ancient political context. However, Schiff doesn't examine how we've interpreted Cleopatra through the lens I mentioned above. Cue Prose's excellent work, "Cleopatra," successfully analyzes her through a gendered cultural and historical perspective. I enjoyed how Prose discusses the ancient sources and how their biased views of her have haunted her for centuries and examined why they held those biases. The only thing that kept me from rating this as five stars is that Prose can jump from period to period so that it could be more cohesive. However, it made me think, and it was great to dive deeply into a misrepresented woman of history.

The majority of my knowledge of cleopatra was that she was a woman who wore a lot of black eyeliner, was very beautiful and she killed herself with an asp. So this book will set you completely straight! It’s well researched and a fascinating account of cleopatras life and relationships. I liked how the author appraised the information too and that the book covers her portrayal in films and theatre too!
Definitely worth a read!
Read through netgalley

Francine Prose tells the story of Cleopatra (VII Philopater, if you want to be specific), her entanglement with the Roman Empire, and how she has become distorted in cultural depictions after her death.

In a way, I am reading this book in preparation – I’ve got the reading of a retelling of Cleopatra’s life set in space (!) coming up, and I figured that I’d appreciate it more if I gave myself a better grounding of the historical subject matter first. Also, I’ve always found Cleopatra’s story fascinating, so it was no skin off my nose.

This is a pretty basic, straightforward history of Cleopatra’s life that does not engage in very much speculation, but presents the facts as they are given in ancient sources. F0r this reason, I think it would appeal best to those who don’t know much about Cleopatra and want to learn about her, but don’t want to read a doorstopper of a biography.

I think this book works best when it discusses the myths around Cleopatra and how she is depicted on stage and on screen, as the author discusses how she is portrayed in a number of mediums and sources

However, while Prose does question the veracity of these sources and engages critically with them, I felt that by the end of the book she was leaning pretty hard on Plutarch’s interpretation without gainsaying them much. I also wished Prose had gone a little further and gotten into the murkier parts of Cleopatra’s life, the things that aren’t so well-documented, to give the reader a broader picture of her. While we got Cleopatra’s story, I did not feel we got to know her.

Will be acquiring this title for our historical figures section. I have always had a interest in Cleopatra….especially after hearing my favorite actress Gugu Mbatha Raw would love to play her one day. It’s nice to have a modern take on her instead of the stuffy tombs pun intended that are found in most history classes. I found it so interesting to know there are no records Cleopatra wrote herself and all we have our the stories told by others. It was so interesting to hear the different stories and myths and see them either Origen or debunked and get an inner glimpse of this most fascinating figure. The cover is also very beautiful and eye catching, it makes you want to pick up the book and dive right in!

This feminist look at the myths surrounding Cleopatra was an oddly organized nonfiction book. The narrative was clunky and dry. Giving both history as well as a look at popular culture references.

A really interesting look at the life of Cleopatra, beyond her relationships to famous men.

I enjoyed the insights into how Cleopatra had been represented in literature through the ages, hailed as a siren without appreciation for her political talents.

This is an exploration of the myths surrounding Cleopatra VII from throughout history, through a modern feminist lens. Ancient records are examined alongside a biography of her - or as close to a biography as we can get, when we do not have a single source in Cleopatra’s own words - and this comes alongside a lot of historical context, and what was happening in Egypt and elsewhere at the time, as it connects to her.

As interested as I am in Cleopatra, I cannot claim to have any sort of expertise, so cannot assess this book on the basis of accuracy. However, it presents the ancient histories as ancient histories, with all the trappings that can come of this, and I enjoyed that deep dive, be it into what we do know, or what we do not. It is very much a history - some comparisons to modern events, but ultimately, it is her contemporaries or those who came shortly after who tell her story for the majority of the book, through Prose’s twenty-first century viewpoint. These ancient historians had their own intentions in how they depicted Cleopatra, and it is Prose who seeks out what those intentions were.

I wish this book had gone into more detail in some parts - even when there is little detail in historical records, that’s still interesting in itself. I would have also enjoyed a broader examination of depictions of her in modern media. Some depictions of her lift quite heavily from historical sources, whereas others are fictionalised fantasies, and while I enjoyed Prose picking apart a couple of truly awful movies, I’d have liked to reflect more on the breadth of modern depictions of Cleopatra. Media so often paints her as a beautiful seductress at best, often spinning seduction into some sort of nymphomaniac, or an ingenue. She is known for political skills and intelligence, and is recorded to have spoken seven languages; if there is media showing these other facets, it is not in this book.

However, as much as I’d have enjoyed more detail in some parts, I did enjoy reading this book. Cleopatra is a fascinating woman, and all the more fascinating when she is allowed the nuance of a real person, rather than being stripped back to whatever one historian or film director wants her to be.

Cleopatra: Her History, Her Myth by Francine Prose is a "feminist reinterpretation" of her life and legacy. I felt like I was reading a script of a Discovery channel show. This is a great thing. I love to watch shows about Egypt and it was a treat to be able to have a chance to review this book. The type And alignment seemed off on the digital copy, but I'm sure this will be fixed upon publication. there are descriptions of artwork and how it can be interpreted in multiple ways. This is a very interesting read. Initially I wasn't sure that there would be anything new to write about Cleopatra, but I'm glad to have found some new perspective.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced digital copy to review.

I don't know exactly what I expected of this book, but it was promising - a feminist reinterpretation of Cleopatra by a significant novelist. I think the main problem is that there is so little to reinterpret.

Prose makes the important point that Cleopatra the real person managed to rule her country for twenty years, at least as successfully as all her predecessors in the Ptolemy dynasty - this is not something that you'd know if you depended upon the movies or even Shakespeare for your information.

She also reminds us that the Ptolemies were Greek/Macedonian, not Egyptian, so Cleopatra's presentation as a dark exotic Middle Easterner has never been true. It may seem a little heavy handed to say that Rome approached Egypt just as imperialists of the modern age have approached countries belonging to brown people, but on the other hand it's clearly true.

Her analysis of Shakespeare's play is one of the best parts of the book. The summaries of the movies are less interesting and even rather annoying - yes this is part of the legend of Cleopatra, but they are bad movies!

The summary of the history of the Ptolemies before Cleopatra was confusing, mostly because every male was named Ptolemy. Where the book really lost me was in the last period of Cleopatra's life.. Despite the questions about reliability and sourcing in some of Plutarch's Life of Antony, once the war between Antony and Octavian begins Prose just narrates the story as Plutarch told it, no longer questioning what he could have known or whether it's accurate. As a result this smart and savvy queen who had military expertise and was able to successfully negotiate with Julius Caesar suddenly seems to have gone stupid. I think Prose should have continued her detailed approach here - are we really sure the Battle of Actium was fought at sea because Cleopatra said it should be? just for starters. This leaves us with the "woman ruined by love" narrative that she earlier criticized.

While this short book is useful for making clear what we really do and don't know about Cleopatra, there was not as much "there" there as I was hoping.

Note, on page 106 there is a mistake, Cleopatra's daughter is indicated as the twin sister of the wrong brother. This isn't just a typo...

Cleopatra by Francine Prose attempts to deconstruct the mythos surrounding Cleopatra. The synposis gave me similiar vibes to The Fabrication of Louis XIV by Peter Burke. Unfortunately, the novel focused on the historical background of Cleopatra, Egypt, and Greece, which makes sense. The history is important to comprehending the Cleopatra's story, but I found it could be weaved throughout of the book. Additionally, many chapters felt like Prose was info dumping. I do think this a great introduction to Cleopatra, but not what I expected.

When requesting this book thought this was going to be more of a story telling of Cleopatra instead of a non-fiction biography. Did enjoy getting the history/mythology surrounding Cleopatra from the female and more feminist perspective instead of the male, patriarchal, and usual misogynist scope history can have.

This was rather challenging to read due to the style of writing. It's written in a choppy, factual, textbook way, focusing more on facts and history, than who Cleopatra really was. I would have liked to learn more about her as a person. The author tries to reinterpret her life by taking all the historical accounts written by others and finding new meaning. The theory is interesting, but it didn't make for an entertaining read.

Francine Prose’s Cleopatra is described as a “feminist reinterpretation of the myths surrounding Cleopatra”. It reads like a thesis paper. This is not a story as much as a reference guide. I can’t imagine it would be of interest to anyone but the most fervent of Cleopatra fans. The writing is dry and academic. This is not what I expected—this same description was given for other retellings, like Circe and Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This book is not like those at all. I felt the description misleading, and was bored reading it.

A feminist reinterpretation of the myths surrounding Cleopatra casts new light on the Egyptian queen and her legacy

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. She challenges the common narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offers a new interpretation of Cleopatra’s history from the lens of our own era.

I couldn’t put it down really enjoyable read totally recommend
Thank You NetGalley and Yale University Press
I just reviewed Cleopatra by Francine Prose. #Cleopatra #NetGalley

A brilliant book relating to the history of Cleopatra from a feminist perspective. Highly recommended and timely. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book.

Fascinating. Think of all you know about Cleopatra. Temptress, Lover, Queen, Princess, death by Asp, incest, etc. Then think again - what do you actually know from fact, or what have you learned from fiction?
Here Francine Prose breaks down that persona and explores in depth who Cleopatra could have been, and how our perceptions of her have been shaped by fiction over time.
Fascinating