Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Published 2010 · 110,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Biography, History, Nonfiction
How hard is Cleopatra: A Life to read?
Cleopatra: A Life scores 26 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 38 out of 100
- Ancient historical terms and classical references.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Abstraction: 35 out of 100
- Historiographical analysis of sources and myths.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Dense reconstruction from fragmentary sources.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Mostly chronological but with digressions on historiography.
- Symbolic density: 20 out of 100
- Cleopatra as symbol of female power and male anxiety.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Schiff's wit and awareness of the sources' biases.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Tragic conclusion well-known but freshly rendered.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Chronological with historiographical interludes.
How Cleopatra: A Life is regarded
Cleopatra: A Life holds a literary regard score of 50 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.