School Library Journal review - by Reed Coates, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (original) (raw)

Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths

2002

[For recent work, such as the myths of Archias and Actaeon, Leucocomas and Euxynthetus, Meletus and Timagoras, and Nissus and Euryalus, please see my Academia page, https://independent.academia.edu/AndrewCalimach ] The Greek myths of love between gods or heroes and youths, including Zeus and Ganymede, Poseidon and Pelops, Laius and Chrysippus, Apollo and Hyacinth, Hercules and Hylas, Achilles and Patroclus, Narcissus, and Orpheus. The myths are restored and retold from ancient fragments. Each story has a complete bibliography, and from the many illustrations of Greek vase paintings and sculptures we see how the Greeks imagined these characters and these situations. 希腊神话中的神和男孩，还是英雄和男孩，包括宙斯和木卫三，海神和贝洛布思，拉伊俄斯和克吕西波，阿波罗和风信子，大力士和海拉斯，阿喀琉斯和帕特罗克洛斯，水仙，奥菲斯之间的同性之爱。

Sexual Uses of Myth as the Basis for a Male-Dominated Society

2015

In world history, few societies have distinguished themselves as the ancient Greeks did. This great society was the birthplace of democracy, the site of the first Olympics and the home to many of the world’s great minds. When thinking of ancient Greece, one sees the Parthenon, Themistocles’ triremes and even men dressed in their chitons passionately debating in the Pynx; however, certain images seem to be obscured from our memory, though they once formed the basis for a male-dominated society. These images revolve around sexuality. One does not always associate ancient Athens with sophisticated sculptures featuring exaggerated use of hermai, nor does one think of red-figure vases showing images of female self-gratification. In more recent scholarly works, ancient Greek sexuality has come to be associated with not just male-female sexual relations, but also with politics and the everyday lifestyle of Greeks; therefore, this paper will discuss sexuality’s importance in the formation o...

FEMALE HOMOSEXUALITY IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME

Routledge, 2021

This groundbreaking study, among the earliest syntheses on female homosexuality throughout Antiquity, explores the topic with careful reference to ancient concepts and views, drawing fully on the existing visual and written record including literary, philosophical, and scienti c documents. Even today, ancient female homosexuals are still too often seen in terms of a mythical, ethereal Sapphic love, or stereotyped as "Amazons" or courtesans. Boehringer's scholarly book replaces these clichés with rigorous, precise analysis of iconography and texts by Sappho, Plato, Ovid, Juvenal, and many other lyric poets, satirists, and astrological writers, in search of the prevailing norms, constraints, and possibilities for erotic desire. The portrait emerges of an ancient society to which today's sexual categories do not apply-a society "before sexuality"-where female homosexuality looks very di erent, but is nonetheless very real. Now available in English for the rst time, Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome includes a preface by David Halperin. This book will be of value to students and scholars of ancient sexuality and gender, and to anyone interested in histories and theories of sexuality.

Sexuality and Sexual Practices in Greek Fictional Epistolography

Živa antika: Antiquité Vivante, 2019

Abstract: Greek fictional epistolography as a subgenre represents an ideal corpus for any kind of synoptic and comparative study: all we have left are four late-antique collections of erotic letters (written by Alciphron, Aelian, Philostratus and Aristaenetus) and a Byzantine one (by Theophylact). The conventions of the subgenre prohibited both obscene language and explicit pornography. However, once they chose erotica as the theme of some of their letters, the authors had to include at least some “spicy” descriptions of sexual contacts. The focus of my research is on the overall representation of lovers’ sexuality in the collections; the letters of each one will be approached from different aspects and the results will be consequently compared. The areas of my interest are: - male and female means of seduction / display of sexual interest - male and female initiative concerning the foreplay - descriptions of “side-effects” of physical contact (arousal and erection) and of sexual act itself (sounds, sweat, ejaculation, the (avoidance of) pregnancy, abortion) - variations in marital and extra-marital sexual liaisons; asexuality and avoidance of marital duties, adultery, threesome, sex in a public place, voyeurism, masochism, fetishism, objectophilia and same-sex relations. The final goal of the paper is to point to (potential) differences in the representation of (both male and female) sexuality in general throughout the literary subgenre from Alciphron to Theophylact and to answer the question which of the authors offers the most detailed and explicit picture of the lovers’ sexual activities.

Between Gynephilia and Pederasty: Erotic Dilemmas and Sexual Preferences in the Greek Anthology

Επιστημονική Επετηρίς της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών, 44 (2019 - 2020) 117 - 130 This paper is exploring the peculiar –for the Christian West– “double-faced” sexuality of the ancient Greeks in epigrammatic poetry with emphasis on the Late Hellenistic and Imperial period. Platonic dialogues on eros, Phaedrus and especially Symposium, sparked off the creation of a long tradition of erotic literature in which the comparison between love for women and love for boys plays an important role (inter alia Plutarch’s Amatorius, ps.-Lucian’s Amores, Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon 2.35-38). The topic of the comparison and dilemma between heterosexual sex and paidikos eros is examined in the epigrams of the 5th and 12th books of the Palatine Anthology. Most of them belong to three erotic epigrammatists par excellence, Meleager, Rufinus and Strato, whose poetic speakers have a differentiated sexual orientation. The arguments of both sides are analyzed in detail. Most of these epigrams declare a preference for boys over women. They come from a period in which polis has completely lost the political function of the classical period, and before Christianity is established and enforces its own morality. However, when the motif returns in the 6th century, the preference is reversed. The epigrams of Agathias and Eratosthenes Scholasticus, written during the period of Justinian’s Christian fanaticism and the strict anti-homosexual law, advocate always female love.

Containing the Kalon Kakon: The Portrayal of Women in Ancient Greek Mythology

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History, 2017

A vital component of mythology is the impact cultural history had on its inception. The relationship between Ancient Greek mythologies' portrayals of human characters mirror the patriarchal society to which the folklore belonged. In Classical Greece, myths also perpetuated gender relationships already imbedded in the societies that created them. I examine three myths from Ancient Greek society, discussing how their portrayal of women impacted educational literature used to teach young elite men how to be proper husbands and rulers of society. I will explain how the restrictive form of patriarchy in Ancient Greece has direct correlations to the portrayal of women as deceitful and manipulative in their mythology. The three myths examined for Ancient Greece are Pandora’s Box, Aphrodite’s various liaisons, and Helen of Troy. Instructional literature from Ancient Greece include Xenophon’s Oeconomicus and the educational aspects of Hesiod’s and Homer’s poetry.

Love is a Cunning Weaver: Myths, Sexuality, and the Modern World

Love is a Cunning Weaver: Myths, Sexuality, and the Modern World explores the relationship between the modern and ancient worlds by analyzing the depiction of queer and female characters in Greco-Roman mythology. That relationship is illuminated and defined by the modern individual’s tendency to apply contemporaneous narratives to myths of the ancient world in order to understand them. The aforementioned queer and female characters are introduced in their original contexts based on the most popular written traditions of the myths in which they appear. They are then broken down through a series of interviews with current (or recently graduated) college students. Finally, the narrative established in the introduction of each chapter is subverted through a creative piece.