CLEOPATRA – THE GIPSY QUEEN
CLEOPATRA – THE GIPSY QUEEN

Summary/Abstract: Cleopatra (in Antony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare) was seen by critics as a symbol of feminine vanity, a cunning snake that deceives whenever and whomever she can, a fabulous being who caresses and entices men only to kill them, a colourful and lascivious witch, a disobedient woman who doesnřt know her place, enslaving Antony and Caesar. The literary critic Northrop Frye goes further, associating the Apollonian figure of Rome/Caesar with knowledge and order, but the figure of Egypt/Cleopatra's with the Dionysian knowledge. This binary of human knowledge has ancient traditions in philosophy. The most famous philosopher of knowledge who based his theory of cultures on the popular Greek myth was Friedrich Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), which argues for the indispensability of the arts for making a living. In this theory Nietzsche outlines the differences between the two types of energies required in art: the energies of Apollo, in portrayals of beauty and order, epitomized by the figure of Rome/Caesar; and the energies of Dionyssos, a primary manifestation of the sublime and ecstatic experience, of which the image of Egypt/Cleopatra is the perfect example

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