The Greeks And Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration Of The Ancient World

The Greeks And Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration Of The Ancient World

Product Description For nearly two thousand years, historians have treated the subject of homosexuality in ancient Greece with apology, embarrassment, or outright denial. Now classics scholar James Davidson offers a brilliant, unblushing exploration of the passion that permeated Greek civilization. Using homosexuality as a lens, Davidson sheds new light on every aspect of Greek culture, from politics and religion to art and war. With stunning erudition and irresistible witand without moral judgmentDavidson has written the first major examination of homosexuality in ancient Greece since the dawn of the modern gay rights movement. What exactly did same-sex love mean in a culture that had no word or concept comparable to our term homosexuality? How sexual were these attachments? When Greeks spoke of love between men and boys, how young were the boys, how old were the men? Drawing on examples from philosophy, poetry, drama, history, and vase painting, Davidson provides fascinating answers to questions that have vexed scholars for generations. To begin, he defines the essential Greek words for romantic loveeros, pothos, philiaand explores the shades of emotion and passion embodied in each. Then, exploding the myth of Greek boy love, Davidson shows that Greek same-sex pairs were in fact often of the same generation, with boys under eighteen zealously separated from older boys and men. Davidson argues that the essence of Greek homosexuality was besottednessfalling head over heels and making a great big song and dance about it, though sex was certainly not excluded. With refreshing candor, humor, and an astonishing command of Greek culture, Davidson examines how this passion played out in the myths of Ganymede and Cephalus, in the lives of archetypal Greek heroes such as Achilles, Heracles, and Alexander, in the politics of Athens and the army of lovers that defended Thebes. He considers the sexual peculiarities of Sparta and Crete, the legend and truth surrounding Sappho, and the relationship between Greek athletics and sexuality. Writing with the energy, vitality, and irony that the subject deserves, Davidson has elucidated the ruling passion of classical antiquity. Ultimately The Greeks and Greek Love is about how desirehomosexual and heterosexualis embodied in human civilization. At once scholarly and entertaining, this is a book that sheds as much light on our own world as on the world of Homer, Plato, and Alexander. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Ithis marvelously entertaining and erudite follow-up to Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens, Davidson has written the definitive study of the varieties of same-sex love in ancient Greece. Abjuring recent theory-laden views of ancient Greek sexuality, and in particular homosexuality, Davidson examines the great variety of loves practiced across all ages and classes in such locales as Sparta, Crete and Macedonia. He draws deeply on etymology, philology, archeology, poetry and philosophy, observing, for instance, that the various Greek words for lovefrom agape (fondness) to pothos (longing) and eros (driving love)define an amatory universe in which a variety of feelings and sexual practices characterize relationships between individuals. Thus, love manifests itself differently depending on whether the lovers are Spartan women, gods and heroes, comrades-in-arms or master and slave. There is the sweet and playful eros of the lyric poets, the patriotic eros of Pericles funeral speech, and the letters of Alexander that reject offers to send him the most beautiful boys in the world. Davidsons study is brilliant social history and a first-rate history of classical Greece. B&w illus. (May 26) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review Praise from the UK: A highly erudite work of social and cultural history. The Guardian (London) [A] massive w