Book Review - Essay on the book Cleopatra: A Life PDF

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Essay on the book Cleopatra: A Life ...

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Cleopatra: A Life By: Stacy Schiff

This book is an introduction into the life of Cleopatra and how she shaped the history of the ancient world. The book talks about how she waged a civil war against her first husband then poisoned the second husband. Stacy Schiff describes Cleopatra as an ambitious woman and the reason behind the fall of the Roman Republic. She had marriages with two of the most prominent men in Rome of that time. Schiff describes her encounter with Caesar as when two civilizations passing in different directions, unexpectedly and momentously touched. She had a child with Caesar before his brutal death and three with his protégé. Cleo was deemed the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean and her relationship with Mark Antony proved her status as the most influential woman of the age. Schiff states in the book Cleopatra went down in history for all the wrong reasons. Schiff feels that Shakespeare depicted her in the wrong way and that Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Schiff also feels that Cleopatra is depicted by historians and poets as a temptress of insatiable sexuality and unlawful love. In the book Schiff gets rid of any myths of Cleopatra and gives us her perspective on who Cleopatra was. Schiff describes her death as an honorable death, a dignified death, an exemplary death. Stacy Schiff the author of Cleopatra: A Life has a lot of qualifications when it comes to writing. She is a graduate of Williams College with a B.A. in writing and former senior editor at Simon Schuster until 1990. Her works have appeared in the NY Times, The New Yorker, and Time Literary Supplement. In 2000 she won a Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Vera Nabokov (wife of Vladimir Nabokov). She was a finalist in 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Biography of Antoine de Saint Exupery. She is currently a columnist for the NY Times.

My overall review of the book is that it was a great book and well written. One weakness of the book that the author tried to go against what the facts of history had already concluded about Cleopatra. To me she was influential but, still history has deemed her as cause of a civil war in Rome and destruction of Roman Republic. I felt that Schiff was arguing with the fact that Cleopatra caused a big rift in Rome. I do feel she has a bad representation of herself throughout history. To me the men were just as guilty as she was. I hated how she viewed because the men had more power than women back then so her marriages were only at the agreements of the men. I think Schiff took Cleopatra biography and turned it into a novel to let people see her perspective of Cleopatra. Schiff describes her as pragmatic leader and intelligent individual. To Schiff she faced the most incomparable men of her time, went through civil disputes, and controlled one of the biggest economies of the ancient world. To me Stacy Schiff gives a character that is true whether or not it is accurate. I think the book reconstructed Cleopatra’s character who had style, ambition, and confidence. I would definitely recommend this book for others to read because everyone can get a different perspective of Cleopatra....