Details

Subject(s)

• Pandora (Greek mythology) in literature [Browse]
• Femininity in literature [Browse]
• Classical literature—History and criticism [Browse]

Series

Wisconsin studies in classics. [More in this series]

Summary note

The notorious image of Pandora haunts mythology: a woman created as punishment for the crimes of man, she is the bearer of hope yet also responsible for the earth's desolation. She binds together perpetuating dichotomies that underlie the most fundamental aspects of the Western canon: beauty and evil, body and soul, depth and superficiality, truth and lie. Speaking in multiplicity, Pandora emerges as the first sign of female complexity. In this compelling study, Vered Lev Kenaan offers a radical revision of the Greek myth of the first woman. She argues that Pandora leaves a decisive mark on ancient poetics and shows that we can unravel the profound impact of Pandora's image once we recognize that Pandora embodies the very idea of the ancient literary text. Locating the myth of the first woman right at the heart of feminist interrogation of gender and textuality, Pandora's Senses moves beyond a feminist critique of masculine hegemony and shows the centrality of this iconic figure among the poetics of such central genres as the cosmological and didactic epic, the Platonic dialogue, the love elegy, and the ancient novel. Pandora's Senses innovates our understanding of gender as a critical lens through which to view ancient literature.

Notes

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-236) and index.

Language note

English

Contents

• Intro
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Pandora's Light
• Pandora, Once Again
• The Genealogy of Pandora
• Misogynist Responses to Pandora
• Pandora's Wonder
• 2. Pandora and the Myth of Otherness
• From Mount Helicon to a Poetics of Otherness
• The Fantasy of Symbiosis between Men and Gods
• Ambiguities of Identity: The Case of Brothers
• The Loss of Sameness and the Birth of Eros
• The Didactic Imperative: Learn the Other
• 3. The Socratic Pandora
• Woman is the Ideal Listener
• The Naked Truth and the Adorned Lie
• The Seductions of Pandora
• Socrates and Theodote
• Socrates and Pandora
• 4. Pandora's Voice and the Emergence of Ovid's Poetic Persona
• Pandora's Voice
• From the Effeminate Elegy to the Feminine Text
• The Erotodidactic Persona
• Sappho's Lasciviousness
• The Lascivious Text
• 5. Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text
• Ars and Remedia: Metadiscourse, Language Games, and the Problem of Sincerity
• The Palinodic Structure
• Palinode and Narrative
• Pandora's Lie
• A Girl's Rape and the Birth of Feminine Subjectivity
• 6. Pandora's Tears
• Feminine Weaving: Text, Textile, Body, Pain
• Helen's Web
• Listening Like a Woman: Penelope's Tears
• Odysseus Weeps Like a Woman
• Xanthippe's Tears
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index.

Show 40 more Contents items

ISBN

• 1-282-59476-1
• 9786612594762
• 0-299-22413-9

OCLC

608692471

Hdl

• 2027/heb08799

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