Cleopatra 4: Cleopatra on the Page
Mary and Charlotte talk to Lucy Hughes-Hallett, acclaimed biographer and author of ‘Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions’, about Cleopatra’s afterlife on the page. Lucy begins by observing that “the people who write about her aren't interested in describing her as a real person. They use her as a kind of mirror onto which they can project their own prejudices and anxieties and often erotic fantasies.” In the 14th Century, Boccaccio mined the old evil temptress angle. Geoffrey Chaucer, however, went the other way: she was a martyr to love, choosing to kill herself rather than consider…
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