Three French Cleopatras

These three dramatisations of the story of Antony and Cleopatra constitute a significant sub-genre within sixteenth-century French “humanist” tragedy. Jodelle’s Cleopatra Captive (1553), recognised as the first neo-classical tragedy in French, served as a reference point for subsequent versions by Garnier (1578) and Montreux (c. 1592). Each inflects the dynamic of love and power derived from the classical sources (principally Plutarch) with varying emphases and interpretative possibilities.

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