Signs of Cleopatra Reading an Icon Historically

by Hamer, Mary

• ISBN13: 9780859898096
• ISBN10: 0859898091
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-15
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

"Why is the name of Cleopatra still resonant after two thousand years? As lover of both Mark Antony and Caesar, and mother of four children by them, her name speaks of pleasure and of intimate relationship. But when Cleopatra was rendered a figure of contempt, first by Augustus, and then later by the Vatican, the desire for love became officially suspect in Christian Europe." "In the face of this contradiction, artists down the centuries responded by returning to the original Cleopatra, retelling her story and re-fashioning images of her. Mary Hamer selects a number of key examples, contextualizing them in time and place within European history. Exploring what these images meant to contemporaries, she opens up new and unexpected readings." "This updated second edition incorporates a new concluding essay examining the recent debate over the surprisingly contentious issue of Cleopatra's race."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Mary Hamer is a Fellow of the DuBois Institute, Harvard. She has published widely on literary and cultural history including work on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Anthony Trollope and Cleopatra. She was involved in curating the British Museum’s exhibition on Cleopatra and has appeared on Woman’s Hour (BBC Radio 4).

Table of Contents

Looking like a queen	p. 1
Cleopatra: housewife	p. 24
Newton and Cleopatra	p. 45
Spaced out: Cleopatra and the citizen-king	p. 77
A body for Cleopatra	p. 104
Notes	p. 135
Afterword: Cleopatra in the twenty-first century: The debate over race	p. 152
Bibliography	p. 160
Index	p. 169
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