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Playing the other: gender and society in classical Greek literature
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1996
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Literary TheoryMasculinitySocial SciencesGender TheoryLiterary CriticismSocial NormsFeminist IdentityLanguage StudiesFeminist Literary TheoryClassicsGreek CultureMythologyLiterary StudyFeminist ScholarshipEpic LiteratureFeminist PerspectivePoeticsGreek TheatreFeminist TheoryGender StereotypeLiterary HistorySexuality StudiesAncient Greek ThoughtClassical Greek Literature
Ancient Greek thought and literature consistently examined gender relations, from domestic and political roles to cosmological hierarchies of gods and goddesses. The study investigates how gender dynamics are portrayed across key archaic and classical texts, including Homeric epics, Hesiodic poetry, and 5th‑century Athenian tragedies and comedies. It analyzes these interactions by examining literary works from the archaic and classical periods, focusing on their thematic content and narrative structures. The analysis reveals that gender shapes Greek social, religious, and cultural practices, influencing concepts of nature, identity, and power, and that female figures in male‑authored texts broaden perspectives on political order, sexuality, kinship, and myth‑making beyond simple male‑female binaries.
Relations between the sexes was a concern of ancient Greek thought and literature, extending from considerations of masculine and feminine roles in domestic and political spheres to the organization of the cosmos in a pantheon of gods and goddesses. This study explores the diversity and complexity of these interactions through the influential literary texts of the archaic and classical periods ranging from epic (Homer) and didactic poetry (Hesiod) to the theatrical productions of tragedy and comedy in 5th-century Athens. The author demonstrates the workings of gender as a major factor in Greek social, religious and cultural practices and in ideas about nature and culture, public and private, citizen and outsider, self and other, and mortal and immortal. Focusing on the prominence of female figures in these male authored texts, she enlarges perspectives on critical components of political order and civic identity by including issues of sexuality, the body, modes of male and female maturation, and speculations about parentage, kinship and reproductive strategies. Along with considerations of genre, poetics and theatrical mimesis, she points to the powerful myth-making capacities of Greek culture for creating memorable paradigms and dramatic scenarios that far exceed simple notions of male and female opposition and predictable enforcement of social norms.