Saturday, November 17, 2018
Cleopatra in Dante's Hell
Among the people Dante placed in his circles of hell was Cleopatra. Last year for our independent reading English project, I read a book called "Cleopatra" about her life and history. Something I remember was how Cleopatra was portrayed as manipulative and lustful by her opponents. This was because she was a powerful woman; other rulers and particularly people who didn’t think a woman should rule felt intimidated by her and thus tried to make her seem fraudulent and mischievous rather than strong and powerful. Even our modern day Halloween costumes for Cleopatra focus on beauty and on revealing cloths rather than power or other aspects of her. Dante shouldn’t have put her in his hell in the circle of the lustful; she shouldn't be remembered that way, and that is one point the author of my independent reading book, Stacy Schiff, was passionate about. She wanted to set Cleopatra's history straight and explain all of the false depictions.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I love that you bring up this point, because this is a common misconception about Cleopatra that isn't just held in our modern day society, but was also present all the way back to pre-Renaissance Italy. Her famous "affair" with Mark Antony that gets her the reputation as a lustful, scandalous women was actually a decisive political move. She was putting her bets on who she thought would become the next emperor of Rome, and was attempting to secure decades of peace and prosperity making an alliance with Rome. Sadly for her, Julius Caesar was the one to win the title of emperor, and was one of many of her political enemies that spread rumors of her being a lustful women in order to discredit her.
Post a Comment