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µ˙ Book ClubFall 2011 and Spring 2012

Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra, A LifeLittle, Brown and Company (2010)

Pulitzer Prize winning biographer, Stacy Schiff, paints a vivid picture of the luxurious lifestyle of the Queen of the Nile, her twin roles as political leader and goddess, and the nail-biting plots and schemes that defined her world.

How to Use this Discussion GuideCreating bridges between the literary and visual arts—this iswhat makes the MFAH Book Club unique. All art arisesfrom the context of its time. The MFAH Book Club usesworks of art from the collection of the Museum of FineArts, Houston (MFAH), and from museums around theworld, as the hub for a series of questions directly relatedto Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra, A Life.

Discuss the questions with your book club, or a friend, orjust think about them if reading on your own, then bringyour book and take a guided tour of select works at theMFAH on a Book Club Tour!

How to Book an MFAH Book Club TourTo complement your reading and discussion of StacySchiff’s Cleopatra, A Life, tours are available October 16,2011 through April 15, 2012. These discussion-based,docent-led tours will feature art works selected from theMFAH collections that evoke life in antiquity and timelesshuman themes.

To book a tour at a time of your own choosing. Read and discuss the book in your own book club, thenbook your group for a guided tour led by a gallery educatorat MFAH Book Club. A minimum of 8 people are required.

Not in a book club? Reading on your own or with afriend? The MFAH has scheduled walk-in tours for eachbook selection on specific dates and times throughout the season. Visit www.mfah.org/bookclub for the walk-intour schedule, and to register for a specific tour.

MFAH Members• Call 713-639-7771• Visit www.mfah.org/kingtut• Stop by a Membership Services desk at the MFAH

General Public• Call 1-888-931-4TUT• Visit www.kingtut.org

Please note: MFAH Book Club Tour of Cleopatra, ALife do not enter the ticketed exhibition, Tutankhamun:The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs. To arrangefor tickets to the exhibition:

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General QuestionsHere are two overarching questions to consider as you talk about the more specific questions below:

Why do you think Cleopatra’s story has captivated historians and artists for over two thousand years?

Discuss the role of subjectivity in historical records. How does Schiff factor that subjectivity into her account? Do youthink neutrality is possible when documenting events in one’s own time? When looking back to the past?

Cleopatra: Queen & Goddess

Discuss the differences between women’s roles and rights in ancient Egyptian and Roman society.

Cleopatra has been painted as a seductress rather than as an adept ruler, even though she came from a long line of strongfemale rulers. What do you think and why?

Are there any women today you would compare to Cleopatra? What characteristics do they share with her?

The book contains several descriptions of Cleopatra’s physical appearance.

How do they compare to this anonymous Mummy Portrait of a Young Woman from the MFAH collection?

Based on what Schiff’s descriptions of Cleopatra’s Ptolemaic predecessors and siblings, was she more like a Macedonian Greek monarch or more like an Egyptian pharaoh?

Roman Period Egyptian, Mummy Portrait of a Young Woman, early 2nd century A.D., paintedplaster, the MFAH, gift of The Brown Foundation, Inc., Isabel B. Wilson, Mary Porter, Nancy andMark Abendshein, and Mrs. Thomas W. Blake.

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Left to right, top to bottom:

Figure of Cleopatra VII, 51–30 B.C., basalt, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.

Bust of Cleopatra VII, 40–30 B.C., marble, Altes Museum, Berlin.

Michael Wohlgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff,Cleopatra, 1493, illustration in Dr. HartmannSchedel, The Nuremberg Chronicle (June 1493,Latin ed.; Dec. 1493, German ed.; pub. AntonKoberger), The Robert D. Farber University Archivesand Special Collections, Brandeis University.

Peter Paul Rubens, Cleopatra, c. 1615, oil on oakpanel, National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic.

François Lemoine, Cleopatra, c. 1725, oil on canvas, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Cleopatra, 1877, oil onpanel, Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand.

Jules Olitski, Cleopatra Flesh, 1962, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, The Museum of ModernArt, New York; gift of G. David Thompson, 1964,(262.1964), © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY, © Jules Olitski/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Andy Warhol, Blue Liz as Cleopatra, 1963,silkscreen ink and acrylic paint on canvas, The Daros Collection, Zürich, Switzerland.

Cleopatra: Queen & Goddess (continued)

Below are 8 images of Cleopatra, from ancient to modern times. Which do you feel best captures your vision of Cleopatra, and why?

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How were Cleopatra’s first encounters with Julius Caesarand Mark Antony different?

Schiff compares Cleopatra with Caesar (Chapter 3) and Antony (Chapter 6). What seem to be their similarities and differences?

Look at these portrait busts of both men, made during theirlifetime and during the same decade, and discuss whatmessages they convey about Caesar and Antony’s character.

Do you think Cleopatra loved Caesar, Mark Antony, both? Do you think either or both men loved her? How would youdescribe the nature of their relationships?

About Ted HughesAn English poet and children’s writer, rankedfourth on The London Times 2008 list of “The50 greatest British writers since 1945”, whoserved as British Poet Laureate from 1984 untilhis passing in 1998. Hughes was married to the American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 untilher death by suicide in 1963 (age 30). He is best known for The Hawk in the Rain (1957); an epic narrative The Life and Songs of the Crow (1966) accompanying illustrations ofcrows by Leonard Baskin; the children’s book,The Iron Man (1968); and his collection of Laureate poems, Rain-charm for the Duchy(1992). On 22 March 2010, it was announcedthat he would be commemorated with a memorialin Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, to be installed in 2011.

Cleopatra: Queen & Goddess (continued)

Amongst the innumerable images of Cleopatra are also numerous accounts of her life, her loves, and her death.Renowned British poet Ted Hughes composed the following poem— “Cleopatra to the Asp” (1960)—about the Queen’s/Goddess’s final thoughts. What are your thoughts about it? (If with a group, ask one volunteer to read the poem aloud.)

In Chapter 9, Cleopatra’s suicide is described, and a 2000-year-old myth is debunked. What do you think about the likelytruth about the cause of her death?

The bright mirror I braved; the devil in itLoved me like my soul; my soulNow that I seek myself in a SerpentMy smile is fatal.

Nile moves in me; my thighs splayInto the squalled Mediterranean.My brain hides in that AbyssiniaLost armies foundered towards.

Desert and river unwrinkle againSeeming to bring them the waters that make drunk. Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank. Now let the snake reign.

A half-deity out of Capricorn this rigid Augustus mountsWith his sword virginal indeed!And has shorn summarilyThe moon-horned riverFrom my bed. May the moon ruin him with virginity!Drink me, now, whole, with coiled Egypt’s pastThen from my Delta swim Like a fish toward Rome.

Left: Gaius Julius Caesar (called Tusculum Caesar), 45– 43 B.C., marble, Museum of Antiquities, Turin, Italy.

Right: Marcus Antonius, c. 43–39 B.C., marble, Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy.

The Men in Cleopatra’s Life

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The Men in Cleopatra’s Life (continued)

Look at the Portrait Figure of a Ruler from the MFAH collection. Though made after both Caesar and Antony lived, which might it embody—and why?

Stacy Schiff writes, “It is not difficult to understand why Caesar becamehistory, Cleopatra a legend” (page 5). What are the differences between the two? Are these differences related to gender?

Portrait Figure of a Ruler, c. A.D. 200–225, bronze, the MFAH, gift of D. and J. de Menil in memory ofConrad Schlumberger.

Places: On the Nile, on the TiborFounded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., the city of Alexandria quickly became a center of culture and learning for the ancient world. After Julius Caesar conquered the city for Rome in 48 B.C., it gradually declined. Share what you learned about Alexandria from Schiff’s descriptions (especially Chapter 6).

In Chapter 3, Schiff writes in reference to the difficult position of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs, specifically Cleopatra’s father,Auletes: “Failure to comply with Rome would lead to intervention. Failure to stand up to Rome would lead to riots.” What gave Rome this right to control Egypt?

In Chapter 4, Cleopatra’s long, difficult, and dangerous journey to Rome is described.Share your impressions of the journey.

To the right is a painting, on view at the MFAH, of a type called a capriccio (Italian; English = caprice), an architectural fantasy that combines actual buildings,archaeological remains and other architectural elements,typically with figures. How do you imagine Cleopatra viewed Rome?

Once in Rome, Cleopatra stays at Caesar’s villa from which,we are told, “she enjoyed a clear view of the city below”(Chapter 4). How does Schiff describe the differencesbetween Rome and Alexandria during this period?

Johannes Lingelbach, A Capriccio View of Rome with the Castel Sant’Angelo,1655, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston.

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All education programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, receive endowment income from funds provided by Caroline Wiess Law; the National Endowmentfor the Humanities; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; the Fondren Foundation; BMC Software, Inc.; the Wallace Foundation; the Louise Jarrett MoranBequest; the Neal Myers and Ken Black Children’s Art Fund; the Favrot Fund; and Gifts in honor of Beth Schneider.

Additional Reading

Hawass, Zahi. Cleopatra: TheSearch for the Last Queen ofEgypt, National Geographic, 2010.

Hughes, Ted. Collected Poems,Paul Keegan (ed.), Faber, 2003.[The poem “Cleopatra to the Asp”which appears on page 87 of thisanthology was published originallyin Ted Hughes’ Lupercal (Faber,1960).]

Robins, Gay. The Art of AncientEgypt (rev. ed.), Harvard UniversityPress, 2008.

About the Author

Stacy Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American nonfiction author andguest columnist for the New York Times. She was a Senior Editor atSimon & Schuster until 1990. Her essays and articles have appeared inThe New Yorker, New York Times Book Review, and the Times LiterarySupplement. In 2000, she won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her biographyof Vera Nabokov, wife of Vladimir Nabokov and muse of Lolita. She wasalso a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Saint-Exupery: A Biographyabout Antoine de Saint Exupery. Schiff’s A Great Improvisation: Franklin,France, and the Birth of America won the 2006 Arwen Taylor Book Prize,the Ambassador Award in American Studies, and the Institut Francais’sGilbert Chinard Prize. She was awarded a 2006 Academy Award in Lit-erature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. For additionalinformation on Stacy Schiff, please visit her website:www.stacyschiff.com.

Places: On the Nile, on the Tibor (continued)

Looking at maps of Alexandria (left) and Rome (right), from the 1st century B.C. to the 1st century A.D., which city do you thinkwas easier to navigate?