Women in the Classical World: Image and Text, ISBN:9780195098624
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Binding: Paperback Release Date: March 1995 List Price:$54.95
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ISBN-13: 9780195098624 ISBN-10: 0195098625 Author: Elaine Fantham, Helene Peet Foley, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Sarah B. Pomeroy, H. A. Shapiro Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
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Summary:
Information about women is scattered throughout the fragmented mosaic of ancient history...the vivid poetry of Sappho survived antiquity on remnants of damaged papyrus...the inscription on a beautiful fourth century B.C.E. grave praises the virtues of Mnesarete, an Athenian woman who died young... a great number of Roman wives were found guilty of poisoning their husbands, but was it accidental food poisoning, or disease, or something more sinister... Apart from the legends of Cleopatra, Dido and Lucretia, and images of graceful maidens dancing on urns, the evidence about the lives of women of the classical world--visual, archaeological, and written----has remained uncollected and uninterpreted.
Now, the lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched Women in the Classical World lifts the curtain on the women of ancient Greece and Rome, exploring the lives of slaves and prostitutes, Athenian housewives and Rome's imperial family. The first book on classical women to give equal weight to written texts and artistic representations, it brings together a great wealth of materials--poetry, vase painting, legislation, medical treatises, architecture, religious and funerary art, women's ornaments, historical epics, political speeches, even ancient coins--to present women in the historical and cultural context of their time. Written by leading experts in the fields of ancient history and art history, women's studies, and Greek and Roman literature, the book's chronological arrangement allows the changing roles of women to unfold over a thousand year period, beginning in the eighth century B.C.E. Both the art and the literature highlight women's creativity, sexuality and coming of age, marriage and childrearing, religious and public roles, and other themes. Fascinating chapters report on the wild behavior of Spartan and Etruscan women and the mythical Amazons, the changing views of the female body presented in male-authored gynecological treatises, the "new woman" represented by the love poetry of the late Republic and Augustan Age, and the traces of upper and lower-class life in Pompeii, miraculously preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. Provocative and surprising, Women in the Classical World is a masterly foray into the past, and a definitive statement on the lives of women in ancient Greece and Rome.
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This is a superb introduction to the study of women in classical times
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Elaine Fantham (perhaps best known in the non-academic community as the Classical commentator on NPR) authored, with other contributors, this superb introductory study to women's studies in ancient Greece and Rome in 1994. Since then, the whole field of studies in the lives of classical-age women has taken off like a rocket, but Dr. Fantham's book - with her co-writers, Helen Peet Foley, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Sarah B. Pomeroy, and H. Alan Shapiro - still manages to provide the best introduction I know to this subject. As stated in the preface, "The purpose of this book is to gather the most important primary sources, both written and visual, for the lives of ancient women, and to present them within their historical and cultural context." Therefore this is a tremendous sourcebook not only for original sources on women's lives, but with equal emphasis to art as well as the written word. If you're beginning to learn about this fascinating field (which is still 'relatively' new in classical studies), this book is a must.
Reference material in an easily read/understood form
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This book is a wealth of information on women in the ancient world (mostly Greece and Rome). It is written in such a way that the reader should have no problem understanding any of the concepts. I was afraid that the writings would be bias, but that was not the case. I bought this book as a required textbook for a college class and was suprised to find it here cheaper than at the college bookstore. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the kind of lives that the women of antiquity lived.
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