Cleopatra reception

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The figure of the last ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII already experienced a wide reception in antiquity , but above all in the various arts since the end of the Middle Ages.

Antiquity

As ruler, Cleopatra, with her children and her partner Marcus Antonius, developed a comprehensive lordly self-representation in their sphere of influence. After Antony's defeat against Augustus and the subsequent suicide of Antony and Cleopatra, the memory split into a positive and a negative strand: In the Latin literature of the Roman Empire, a negative representation dominates, which is to a large extent shaped by Augustus' propaganda. In Egypt, however, Cleopatra was worshiped for a long time. To the annoyance of the Jewish historian Flavius ​​Josephus , the Alexandrian grammarian Apion celebrated her around the middle of the first century AD. The golden statue dedicated to her by Gaius Julius Caesar in Rome still stood there in the third century and Queen Zenobia is said to have descended from the Egyptian queen have returned. On the island of Philae, a priest gilded a statue of Cleopatra in 373. Only she achieved the same fame of all the successors of Alexander the Great . Even John of Nikiû wrote of Cleopatra, with his emphasis on the construction of the Queen. Probably as early as the second century AD there is an account of a conversation between Cleopatra and philosophers concerning alchemy . It is one of the oldest texts on alchemy at all.

Reception in Arabic sources of the Middle Ages

Cleopatra appears in numerous Arabic sources, where she emerges as a builder, scholar and doctor. Fairytale love stories also grew up around her person.

The first Arab author to mention the ruler was Ibn ʿAbd al-Hakam , who wrote a story of the Arab conquest of Egypt at the beginning of the 9th century and calls it Cleopatra. Ibn ʿAbd al-Hakam attributed the construction of the Alexandria lighthouse and the construction of a canal to her. Other Arab authors were also impressed by their building work.

She was also revered as a scholar who made significant discoveries in alchemy, medicine, and mathematics. The first to convey this image was al-Masʿūdī († 957). After him she was a philosopher who wrote books on medicine, but also cosmetics. The alchemist al-Dschildaki also has a dialogue between Cleopatra and philosophers. Other sources report that a foreigner named Gabirus (or Gabinius) came to Egypt to recover from an illness. He also visited the queen with the ulterior motive of marrying her and becoming king of Egypt. Cleopatra sent a servant to him who assured him that Cleopatra also loved him, but that he should first build a city on the Mediterranean. Despite some obstacles, the city was built, but shortly before the planned marriage, Cleopatra was bitten by a snake and died.

This positive image of Cleopatra stands in contrast to the somewhat later European depictions, which she portrayed as hedonistic and seductive.

Reception from the end of the Middle Ages

literature

In Dante's Divine Comedy , Cleopatra is referred to in the fifth song of hell as a wooer , where the sinners of love are punished for all eternity. From the beginning of the Middle Ages, interest in Egypt declined in Europe and only reawakened in the 15th century with the rediscovery of antiquity. Cleopatra's renewed reception began with Giovanni Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus (1356–1364), a work about the lives of 104 well-known ancient women. Cleopatra is attributed the qualities of beauty, but also lasciviousness and cruelty. The first dramatic arrangements were provided by Cesare De'Cesari ( Cleopatra , 1551) and Étienne Jodelle ( Cléopâtre captive , 1552), who only set their action after the death of Antony and only describe Cleopatra's last days. Jodelle contrasts Cleopatra, transfigured by her noble death, with a raw Octavian. After a predominantly positive representation in the 16th century, works of the 17th century also took up negative traits of Cleopatra. But even Hans Sachs , who was the first German author to work on the subject, portrayed the Egyptian queen very negatively as haughty, dissolute and faithless in his moral drama Queen Cleopatra with Antonio the Roman (1560).

The French translation of Plutarch's Antonius by Jacques Amyot (1559) was translated into English by Thomas North in 1579. The masterful drama Antony and Cleopatra (1606/07) by William Shakespeare is based on North's adaptation. It is regarded as the unsurpassed main literary work on this subject, has been translated into over 120 languages ​​and has significantly shaped the image of Cleopatra outside of the specialist field. The subject of intense but in decline, love is in the foreground in relation to politics. In Cleopatra, good and bad character traits combine to form extreme passion; she is fickle, greedy for power, but also a devoted lover until death, an embodiment of the luxury, exoticism and sensuality of the Orient in contrast to the staid Roman women. The Ptolemaic woman and the Triumvir striving for world domination attract each other in a downright demonic manner through their intoxicating love and only really find each other when they die.

For John Dryden ( All for Love , 1678) Cleopatra is a lover willing to make sacrifices, for the German author Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein ( Cleopatra , 1661) a traitor to her lover. In La Mort de Pompée (1643) by Pierre Corneille , the Egyptian queen and Caesar play the leading role; the ambitious Cleopatra contrasts with the modest Cornelia, the wife of Pompey. The Egyptian is described as a self- sacrificing heroine by Jean-François Marmontel ( Antoine et Cléopâtre , 1750), but as a domineering, treacherous egoist in the play Octavia (1799) by August von Kotzebue . Since Napoleon's campaign in Egypt (1798/99), interest and enthusiasm for Egypt grew in the 19th century. Cleopatra was often portrayed as a beautiful seductress, a femme fatale , who would ruin men . Pushkin left behind the prose fragment Egyptian Nights, published posthumously in 1837 . In Une nuit de Cléopâtre (1845) by Théophile Gautier , the cruel queen can lure a young slave into bed, even though he knows that he will have to die for this love pleasure. This motif was taken up in several literary and musical works over the next few decades. Cleopatra (1894) was one of the heroines of the German Egyptologist and writer Georg Ebers .

In the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw ( Caesar and Cleopatra , 1899, filmed by Gabriel Pascal , 1945), the young queen - an immature and moody girl - turns from a Caesar, described as old, weak and disillusioned, but fatherly and wise, to a self-confident one Shaped monarch. Cleopatra appears as a witty partner in the Ides of March (1948) by Thornton Wilder : Here she is an intelligent and charming, but also unscrupulous woman, with whom an aging Caesar is extremely fascinated.

Cleopatra also appears in three Asterix comics.

Selection of further fiction about the Egyptian queen:

music

About 80 operas have been composed on the subject of Cleopatra since the 17th century. C. Castrovillari created a corresponding work as early as 1662. In Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1723/24) by Georg Friedrich Handel , Cleopatra submits to a wise and mild Caesar. The plot revolving around love and power with a happy ending, which is spiced with “ingredients” such as great emotions, political cabal, erotic seduction and the exotic Orient, made Giulio Cesare in Egitto the most popular Handel opera. The Königliche Schaubühne in Berlin (today's Berlin Opera) opened in 1742 with the opera Cleopatra e Cesare by Carl Heinrich Graun , who set a libretto written by Giovanni Gualberto Botarelli based on P. Corneille's drama La Mort de Pompée to music . In 1881 Wilhelm Freudenberg used in his opera Cleopatra the motif created by T. Gautier of the merciless queen who forced the slaves seduced by her to die. Victor Massé based his work Une nuit de Cléopâtre on a libretto by J. Barbier on the same motif in 1885 . In the 20th century, Jules Massenet ( Cléopâtre , 1914) and, based on the Shakespeare drama Gian Francesco Malipiero ( Antonio e Cleopatra , 1938) composed operas that deal with the Ptolemaic.

In addition to operas, cantatas, operettas and ballet pieces (such as Jean-Pierre Aumer , Les Amours d'Antoine et de Cléopâtre , 1808) also deal with the life of the Egyptian queen. The Russian composer Anton Stepanowitsch Arenski created the one-act ballet Egyptian Nights (op. 50) on the subject.

In terms of music videos , the Cleopatra song from the CBBC series Horrible Histories , which was created around 2008, is noteworthy with millions of views on YouTube alone .

Visual arts

Cleopatra's life has served as a template for numerous works of fine art since the Renaissance . Over 60 painters depicted Cleopatra's feast, and more than 150 depicted her death. What is striking is the increasing eroticization of the subject , which goes hand in hand with its detachment from its ancient origins. While the dying Egyptian queen is shown fully clothed with the snake on her arm in an illustration for Giovanni Boccaccio's work De casibus virorum illustrium from 1410, she has been more or less naked since Michelangelo's drawing from 1533/34 and lets herself be with her almost tender gesture of the deadly serpent's bosom.

The history painter rarely mediated information about an important figure of the Roman and Egyptian history in its presentation of the dying Cleopatra. In the Mannerist painting by the Italian Guido Reni , Cleopatra is shown in contemporary European clothing and without any indication that the events should take place in ancient Egypt. In a parallel picture made ten years later, the painter used almost the same composition and motif, with the only difference that the depicted, half-naked woman is holding a dagger in her hands rather than a snake, because it is a representation of the death of the Lucretia . For Reni Cleopatra was only one example of female valor and virtue among many who ideally show themselves in suicide. The baroque painter Guido Cagnacci (1601–1663) was so taken with the subject of the dying queen that he brought it onto canvas three times.

In academic painting of the 19th century, the erotic element, combined with a conspicuous exoticism in the depiction of the subject, came to the fore: the ancient Egyptian décor was either highlighted in a theatrical and garish manner, as with the French painter Alexandre Cabanel, or with a pompous touch - replaces oriental ambience as with his English colleague Reginald Arthur The fascination of the connection between sex and death is at this time in all representations of the death of Cleopatra in the foreground, not as a victim, as dying, but as a projection surface for male fear pleasure and so seductive in front of a foreign country as dangerous femme fatale appears . This idea of ​​Cleopatra had a great impact on her image in the Hollywood films of the 20th century.

  • The death of Cleopatra ; Painting by Guido Reni (1630)

  • The death of Cleopatra ; Painting by Guido Cagnacci (after 1659)

  • The death of Cleopatra ; Painting by Guido Cagnacci (before 1664)

  • The death of Cleopatra ; Painting by Jean-Baptiste Regnault (1796/1799)

  • The death of Cleopatra ; Painting by Jean André Rixens (1874)

  • Cleopatra tests the poison on those condemned to death ; Painting by Alexandre Cabanel (1887)

  • The Death of Cleopatra by Reginald Arthur (1892)

  • Cleopátra ; Painting by Gyula Benczúr (1911)

Film adaptations

Theda Bara as Cleopatra (1917)

Since 1899, more than 90 films have shaped the image of Cleopatra to the general public more than any literary work. The monumental Hollywood film adaptations in particular contributed to this development. The spectrum ranges from productions carefully based on the historical Cleopatra to porn. The earliest productions portrayed Cleopatra as seductive femme fatale, plunging men into ruin, in front of a splendid and vicious oriental backdrop. The role of the heroine was taken over by beautiful and already well-known actresses. The film adaptation of 1917 with Theda Bara as the incarnation of the Egyptian queen reached the height of sexual permissiveness . As a new advertising strategy, the production company Fox propagated that the main protagonist, who was actually Jewish, was possibly of Egyptian origin, grew up near the pyramids and that her appearance was predicted on a 2500-year-old inscription. The scenes, which were extremely erotic for the morality of the time, were considered too taboo-breaking in the 1930s and the film was therefore banned.

Claudette Colbert embodied a more subtle, sporty Cleopatra who no longer appears as a femme fatale in the first sound film on this subject from 1934. Oriented towards the biography of Oskar Wertheimer , the production sought a certain historical depiction. The Ptolemaic is sometimes portrayed as young and naive, but also as energetic in serious situations. The government is more of a burden for her, she longs more for a happy relationship and ends up appearing as Antonius' sincerely loving wife. As portrayed childless in earlier films, many American women saw her as a role model for an emancipated, sexually and economically independent woman. The advertising industry simultaneously marketed the beauty products and wigs that the Egyptian queen allegedly used.

The 1963 film adaptation with Elizabeth Taylor in the lead role was created with great start-up difficulties and financial expense . It is considered to be the most monumental, complex and, thanks to the director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, most of the historical sources oriented production. Cleopatra is portrayed as a strong, clever, power-conscious and linguistically gifted woman who uses her physical charms and her abilities to achieve her political goals. Even the existence of her child, Caesarion, shown in this film, does not prevent her from engaging in politics. Overall, Taylor, who is also a dazzling personality in private life - she began an extramarital affair with the Antonius actor Richard Burton during filming - was the most complex embodiment of the Egyptian queen. This film adaptation, which in some cases also met scientific standards, contributed perhaps more than any specialist biography to the knowledge of the Ptolemaic woman among a broad audience. However, the quality suffered from the shortening from four to three hours for economic reasons.

Of later productions, only the one from 1999 with Leonor Varela is worth mentioning. However, this film does not come close to that of 1963 either. Cleopatra is portrayed as sexually dissolute, immature, despotic, and unreasonable. The cliché of the oriental femme fatale can be heard again. However, it is not up to its political role. Your character is drawn quite simply, but the complex political entanglements of your government are hardly touched on.

year Original title German title country Director Title role Remarks
1899 Cléopâtre France Georges Méliès Jeanne d'Alcy Short film
1908 Antony and Cleopatra United States J. Stuart Blackton , Charles Kent Florence Lawrence Film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Antonius und Cleopatra ; Short film
1910 Cléopâtre France Henri Andréani, Ferdinand Zecca Madeleine Roch Film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Antonius und Cleopatra ; Short film
1912 Cleopatra United States Charles L. Gaskill Helen Gardner Film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1913 Marcantonio e Cleopatra The mistress of the Nile Italy Enrico Guazzoni Gianna Terribili-Gonzales
1914 Antony and Cleopatra United States Film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Antonius und Cleopatra ; Short film
1917 Cleopatra United States J. Gordon Edwards Theda Bara
1920 Cleopatra United States Bud Fisher Cartoon; Comic book adaptation
1923 Cleopatra and Her Easy Mark United States Cartoon
1924 Anthony and Cleopatra United States Bryan Foy Ethel Teare Film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1928 Cleopatra United States Roy William Neill Dorothy's Revier Short film
1931 Oh! Oh! Cleopatra United States Joseph Santley Dorothy Burgess Short film, comedy
1934 Cleopatra Cleopatra ( Cleopatra ) * United States Cecil B. DeMille Claudette Colbert won an Oscar and received four other nominations
1945 Caesar and Cleopatra Caesar and Cleopatra ( Caesar and Cleopatra ) * Great Britain Gabriel Pascal Vivien Leigh Oscar nomination; the screenplay was written by George Bernard Shaw
1947 La Vida íntima de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra Mexico Roberto Gavaldón Maria Antonieta Pons
1951 Antony and Cleopatra Great Britain Pauline Letts Film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1953 Due notti con Cleopatra Two nights with Cleopatra Italy Mario Mattoli Sophia Loren
1953 Serpent of the Nile United States William Castle Rhonda Fleming
1960 Le Legioni di Cleopatra The Caesar's Legions Italy, France, Spain Vittorio Cottafavi Linda Cristal
1962 Una Regina per Cesare Cleopatra, the naked queen of the Nile Italy, France Piero Pierotti , Viktor Tourjansky Pascale Petit
1962 Cleopatra Brazil As long as TV series
1963 Cleopatra Cleopatra United States Joseph L. Mankiewicz Elizabeth Taylor won four Academy Awards; is one of the most expensive film productions of all time
1963 Totò e Cleopatra Italy Fernando Cerchio Magali Noël comedy
1963 Antony and Cleopatra Antony and Cleopatra Federal Republic of Germany Rainer Wolffhardt Lola Müthel TV adaptation of the Shakespearean drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1963 The Spread of the Eagle Great Britain Mary Morris TV miniseries
1964 Carry on Cleo It's crazy - Caesar loves Cleopatra Great Britain Gerald Thomas Amanda Barrie Period film parody from the carry-on… film series
1965 Antonio e Cleopatra Italy Vittorio Cottafavi Valeria Valeri TV adaptation of the Shakespearean drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1965 Caesar and Cleopatra Caesar and Cleopatra Federal Republic of Germany Hans-Dieter Schwarze TV production
1968 Astérix and Cléopâtre Asterix and Cleopatra France, Belgium René Goscinny , Lee Payant, Albert Uderzo Cartoon
1970 Cleopatra United States Michel Auder Viva Experimental film
1970 Kureopatora Cleo and the great Romans Japan Osamu Tezuka , Eiichi Yamamoto Cartoon
1970 The Notorious Cleopatra United States Bethel Buckalew Sonora Erotic film
1970 Caesar and Cleopatra Caesar and Cleopatra Federal Republic of Germany Ulrich Erfurth Violetta Ferrari TV production
1972 Antony and Cleopatra Antony and Cleopatra Great Britain, Spain, Switzerland Charlton Heston Hildegarde Neil Film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1974 Antony and Cleopatra Great Britain Jon Scoffield Janet Suzman TV adaptation of the Shakespearean drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1976 Caesar and Cleopatra Caesar and Cleopatra United States James Cellan Jones Geneviève Bujold TV adaptation of the Shaw play
1981 Antony and Cleopatra UK, USA Jonathan Miller Jane Lapotaire TV adaptation of the Shakespearean drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1983 Antony and Cleopatra United States Lawrence Carra Lynn Redgrave TV adaptation of the Shakespearean drama Antonius and Cleopatra
1983 The Cleopatras Great Britain John Frankau Michelle Newell BBC TV production, drama series about the story of the Ptolemies from Cleopatra II - Cleopatra VII.
1985 Sogni erotici di Cleopatra Cleopatra's orgies Italy, France Rino Di Silvestro Erotic film
1999 Cleopatra Cleopatra Germany, USA Franc Roddam Leonor Varela TV production
2000 The Royal Diaries: Cleopatra - Daughter of the Nile Canada Randy Bradshaw Elisa Moolecherry TV production about Cleopatra VII's youth.
2002 Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra France, Germany Alain Chabat Monica Bellucci Actual version based on the cartoon from 1968
2003 Cleopatra Czech Republic Filip Renc Monika Absolonová musical
2003 Cleopatra Sweden Antonio Adamo Julia Taylor Porn film, sequel Cleopatra II - Legend of Eros in 2004
2006 Cleopatra Brazil Júlio Bressane Alessandra Negrini
2009 Cléopâtre, la dernière reine d'Égypte France Camel Ouali Sofia Essaïdi musical
2019 Cleopatra in Space United States Lilimar Animation television series
*

Cleopatra as a black African

A new myth has developed in the USA since 1973: Cleopatra, like the other pharaohs, is interpreted by African-American students as a black African and stylized as a cult figure. She is referred to as a great historical personality, also known as the great woman of world history, and appropriated for black African history and cultural identity . Various African-American historians who understand themselves in the tradition of the Senegalese Egyptologist and philosopher Cheikh Anta Diop support and spread this theory. Together with Hatshepsut and Nefertiti , Cleopatra is the third woman who, as a black woman, intervened in history and is therefore used to prove the depth of black African history.

Others

The asteroid discovered by Johann Palisa in 1880 was named after the ruler ( (216) Cleopatra ).

literature

  • J. Anderson, Sally-Ann Ashton, Elisabeth Bronfen , Ulrich Eigler : Cleopatra. The eternal diva. Catalog for the exhibition Bonn | Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany from June 28 to October 6, 2013. Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-7774-2088-2 .
  • Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony. In: Eric M. Moormann, Wilfried Uitterhoeve: Lexicon of ancient figures. With their continued life in art, poetry and music (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 468). Kröner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-520-46801-8 , pp. 394-401.
  • Jörg Marquardt: Cleopatra. In: Der Neue Pauly , Suppl. 8, 2013, Sp. 551-576.
  • Christoph Schäfer : Cleopatra . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-534-15418-5 .
  • Diana Wenzel: Cleopatra in the film. A queen of Egypt as a symbol for oriental culture , Remscheid 2005.

Web links

Commons : Cleopatra VII.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Simon Benne: Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra VII. Building power, ruling representation and political conception , Göttingen 2001.
  2. ↑ Marian Nebelin: Cleopatra's ancient history of reception. Division - scarcity - elimination of associations . In: Janina Göbel, Tanja Zech (Ed.): Export hit - cultural exchange, economic relationships and transnational developments in the ancient world . Munich 2010, pp. 26–54.
  3. ↑ Ilse Becher: The image of Cleopatra in Greek and Latin literature . Berlin 1966.
  4. ↑ Cassius Dio , Roman History 51, 22, 3; Historia Augusta , Triginta tyranni 27, 1; 30, 2; 30, 19.
  5. ^ O. El-Daly: Egyptology: The Missing Millennium . London 2005, ISBN 1-84472-062-4 , pp. 132-133.
  6. ^ The Cleopatra fragments ( Memento June 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  7. ^ O. El-Daly: Egyptology: The Missing Millennium, Ancient Egypt in Mediaval Arabic Writings. London 2005, ISBN 1-84472-062-4 , p. 133.
  8. ^ O. El-Daly: Egyptology: The Missing Millennium , p. 133.
  9. ^ O. El-Daly: Egyptology: The Missing Millennium , p. 135.
  10. ^ O. El-Daly: Egyptology: The Missing Millennium . London 2005, p. 136.
  11. ^ O. El-Daly: Egyptology: The Missing Millennium . London 2005, p. 131.
  12. ↑ Elisabeth Frenzel : Substances of world literature. A lexicon of longitudinal sections of the history of poetry (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 300). 9th, revised and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-30009-5 , pp. 438-442; C. Schäfer, 2006, pp. 268-272.
  13. ↑ Article Cleopatra VII and Marcus Antonius. In: Eric M. Moormann, Wilfried Uitterhoeve: Lexicon of ancient figures. With their continued life in art, poetry and music (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 468). Kröner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-520-46801-8 , pp. 394-401, here pp. 398-399; C. Schäfer, 2006, pp. 270-271.
  14. ↑ CBBC: " Horrible Histories Song - Cleopatra. Retrieved August 12, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Also on the following Dagmar Keultjes: Bite in the breast . In: The time . No. 30 , 2003 ( online ).
  16. ^ Diana Wenzel: Cleopatra in Rome . In: Thomas Glück, Ludwig Morenz (Ed.): Exotic, wisdom and ancient. European constructions of ancient Egypt . LIT Verlag, Berlin - Hamburg - Münster 2007, p. 251 f .
  17. ↑ C. Schäfer, 2006, pp. 279–288.
  18. ↑ Sara Munson Deats: Shakespeare's Anamorphic drama. A Survey of Antony and Cleopatra in Criticism, on Stage, and on Screen. In: Sara Munson Deats (Ed.): Antony and Cleopatra. New Critical Essays. Routledge 2004, p. 25 and ö.