"In the Greek romances," writes David Konstan, "sighs, tears,
and suicide attempts are as characteristic of the male as of the
female in distress; ruses, disguises, and outright violence in
defense of one's chastity are as much the part of the female as of
the male." Exploring how erotic love is represented in ancient
amatory literature, Konstan points to the symmetry in the passion
of the hero and heroine as a unique feature of the Greek novel:
they fall mutually in love, they are of approximately the same age
and social class, and their reciprocal attachment ends in marriage.
He shows how the plots of the novels are perfectly adapted to
expressing this symmetry and how, because of their structure, they
differ from classical epic, elegy, comedy, tragedy, and other
genres, including modern novels ranging from Sidney to Harlequin
romances.
Using works like "Chaereas and Callirhoe" and "Daphnis and
Chloe," Konstan examines such issues as pederasty, the role of eros
in both marital and nonmarital love, and the ancient Greek concept
of fidelity. He reveals how the novelistic formula of sexual
symmetry reverses the pattern of all other ancient genres, where
erotic desire appears one-sided and unequal and is often viewed as
either a weakness or an aggressive, conquering power. Konstan's
approach draws upon theories concerning the nature of sexuality in
the ancient world, reflected in the work of Michel Foucault, David
Halperin, and John Winkler.
Originally published in 1993.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
its founding in 1905.
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