Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World

Published by Princeton University Press 1990

Before Sexuality

The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World

Edited by: Froma I. Zeitlin , John J. Winkler and David M. Halperin

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691221335

Overview
Contents

About this book

A dream in which a man has sex with his mother may promise him political or commercial success--according to dream interpreters of late antiquity, who, unlike modern Western analysts, would not necessarily have drawn conclusions from the dream about the dreamer's sexual psychology. Evidence of such shifts in perspective is leading scholars to reconsider in a variety of creative ways the history of sexuality. In these fifteen original essays, eminent cultural historians and classicists not only discuss sex, but demonstrate how norms, practices, and even the very definitions of what counts as sexual activity have varied significantly over time. Ancient Greece offers abundant evidence for a radically different set of sexual standards and behaviors from ours. Sex in ancient Hellenic culture assumed a variety of social and political meanings, whereas the modern development of a sex-centered model of personality now leads us to view sex as the key to understanding the individual. Drawing on both the Anglo-American tradition of cultural anthropology and the French tradition of les sciences humaines, these essays explore the iconography, politics, ethics, poetry, and medical practices that made sex in ancient Greece not a paradise of liberation but an exotic locale hardly recognizable to visitors from the modern world. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Peter Brown, Anne Carson, Franoise Frontisi-Ducroux, Maud W. Gleason, Ann Ellis Hanson, Franois Lissarrague, Nicole Loraux, Maurice Olender, S.R.F. Price, James Redfield, Giulia Sissa, and Jean-Pierre Vernant.

Reviews

"[The contributors] have either renewed the study of traditional topics and sources . . . or brought neglected and marginalized topics centrally into the play of cultural history by means of their hermeneutic approach and omnivorous perspective."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
PREFACE Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Herakles: The Super-Male and the Feminine Nicole Loraux Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. The Sexual Life of Satyrs François Lissarrague Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
3. Aspects of Baubo: Ancient Texts and Contexts Maurice Olender Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
4. From Sex to Politics: The Rites of Artemis Triklaria and Dionysos Aisymnetes at Patras James Redfield Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
5. Putting Her in Her Place: Woman, Dirt, and Desire Anne Carson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
6. Laying Down the Law: The Oversight of Men's Sexual Behavior in Classical Athens John J. Winkler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
7. From Ambiguity to Ambivalence: A Dionysiac Excursion through the "Anakreontic" Vases Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux and François Lissarrague Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
8. Why Is Diotima a Woman? Platonic Eros and the Figuration of Gender David M. Halperin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
9. The Medical Writers' Woman Ann Ellis Hanson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
10. Maidenhood without Maidenhead: The Female Body in Ancient Greece Giulia Sissa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	339
11. The Future of Dreams: From Freud to Artemidoros S. R. F. Price Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	365
12. The Semiotics of Gender: Physiognomy and Self-Fashioning in the Second Century C.E. Maud W. Gleason Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	389
13. The Poetics of Eros: Nature, Art, and Imitation in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe Froma I. Zeitlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	417
14. One . . . Two . . . Three: Eros Jean-Pierre Vernant Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	465
15. Bodies and Minds: Sexuality and Renunciation in Early Christianity Peter Brown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	479
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	495
INDEX OF PASSAGES DISCUSSED Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	499
GENERAL INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	511