beauty, myth, devastation
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Blondell, Ruby
- Publish Year
- 2013
- Shelfmark
- OUDH 9 HEL 2013 - B
- Thesaurus
- vrouwenlichamen, macht, dagelijks leven, oorlog en vrede, biografie, oudheid
- Description
- The story of Helen of Troy has its origins in ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry, more than 2500 years ago, but it remains one of the world's most galvanizing myths about the destructive power of beauty.Her elopement with the Trojan prince Paris started the most famous war in antiquity. For ancient Greek poets and philosophers, the Helen myth provided a means to explore the paradoxical nature of female beauty, which is at once an awe-inspiring, supremely desirable gift from the gods, essential to the perpetuation of a man's name through reproduction, yet also grants women terrifying power over men, posing a threat inseparable from its allure. In this book, Ruby Blondell looks at the ambiguities that Helen embodies. Moving from Homer and Hesiod to Sappho, Aeschylus, Euripides, and others, Helen of Troy shows how this powerful myth was continuously reshaped and revisited by the Greeks.