Books > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE
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Helen of Troy - Beauty, Myth, Devastation (Hardcover, New)
Loot Price: R1,282
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Helen of Troy - Beauty, Myth, Devastation (Hardcover, New)
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Ancient Greek culture is pervaded by a profound ambivalence
regarding female beauty. It is an awe-inspiring, supremely
desirable gift from the gods, essential to the perpetuation of a
man's name through reproduction; yet it also grants women
terrifying power over men, posing a threat inseparable from its
allure. The myth of Helen is the central site in which the ancient
Greeks expressed and reworked their culture's anxieties about
erotic desire. Despite the passage of three millennia, contemporary
culture remains almost obsessively preoccupied with all the power
and danger of female beauty and sexuality that Helen still
represents. Yet Helen, the embodiment of these concerns for our
purported cultural ancestors, has been little studied from this
perspective. Such issues are also central to contemporary feminist
thought. Helen of Troy engages with the ancient origins of the
persistent anxiety about female beauty, focusing on this key figure
from ancient Greek culture in a way that both extends our
understanding of that culture and provides a useful perspective for
reconsidering aspects of our own. Moving from Homer and Hesiod to
Sappho, Aeschylus, and Euripides, Ruby Blondell offers a fresh
examination of the paradoxes and ambiguities that Helen embodies.
In addition to literary sources, Blondell considers the
archaeological record, which contains evidence of Helen's role as a
cult figure, worshipped by maidens and newlyweds. The result is a
compelling new interpretation of this alluring figure.
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