Synopses & Reviews
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. Much like the ancient Greeks, our own relationship to female beauty is deeply ambivalent, fraught with both desire and danger. We worship and fear it, advertise it everywhere yet try desperately to control and contain it. No other myth evocatively captures this ambivalence better than that of Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda, and wife of the Spartan leader Menelaus. Her elopement with (or abduction by) the Trojan prince Paris "launched a thousand ships" and 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. Many ancients simply vilified Helen for her role in the Trojan War but there is much more to her story than that: the kidnapping of Helen by the Athenian hero Theseus, her sibling-like relationship with Achilles, the religious cult in which she was worshipped by maidens and newlyweds, and the variant tradition which claims she never went to Troy at all but was whisked away to Egypt and replaced with a phantom. In this book, author Ruby Blondell offers a fresh look at the paradoxes and 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. By focusing on this key figure from ancient Greece, the book both extends our understanding of that culture and provides a fascinating perspective on our own.
Review
"This excellent volume takes the reader on a tour with Helen of Troy, as she journeys from
the Archetype (Pandora) through her complex identities in the Iliad, the Odyssey, the
Oresteia, the lyric poets, Herodotus' Histories, Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, Euripides' Trojan Women and Helen, and finally Isocrates' Encomium of Helen. The book is descriptive in its focus, and shows that Helen, 'who is a concept, not a person' (p. xi), occupied roles that are important both in themselves and also for understanding the works in question. ... [Blondell] has achieved a miracle of lucid, useful and responsible accessibility. This jargon and footnote free volume will benefit scholars and students in classics, the humanities and beyond." --The Classical Review
"Blondell's stimulating and provocative book demonstrates how Helen is 'an ever-refreshing screen for the projection of ideas and ideals about beauty, women, sex and power.' Demonized, idolized, allegorized, or humanized, Helen of Troy remains no woman and every woman." --Bookslut
"A compelling new portrait of the most famous femme fatale in history as she appears in Greek myth and literature."--Publishers Weekly
"Readers need not be scholars of Greek poetry and culture to appreciate this engaging look at an epic tale with modern resonance." --Booklist
"If you have an appreciation for the classics or even just strong feminine roles, you will want to pick this book up. It will easily become a favorite amongst the rest of your library for years to come." --citybookreview.com
"An entertaining and lively narrative"--Library Journal
"An insightful book, filled with salacious tales of morality that the ancient Greeks did better than anyone since, Blondell's Helen of Troy is a real beauty." --Clifford Cunningham, Sun News Miami
"A marvelously comprehensive look at Helen of Troy and her interpretations--literary, dramatic, and historical-through the ages. Every dimension of the myth of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and immortal in memory, is explored and analyzed. It leaves you awed and enlightened." --Margaret George, author of Helen of Troy and The Memoirs of Cleopatra
"Helen's face launched not only a thousand ships but also thousands of texts and artworks: Blondell's lucid, learned, but light-handed study shows why." --Glenn Most, University of Chicago
"A broad, subtle, and beautifully-written study that deserves a large and varied readership. Combining shrewd analysis with lightly-worn expertise, Blondell shows how Greek culture turned again and again to the myth of Helen to confront the disquieting power of female beauty." --Sheila Murnaghan, University of Pennsylvania
"Blondell has written a rich and penetrating study of the Helen myth in the Greek world."
--New Republic
Review
"A compelling new portrait of the most famous femme fatale in history as she appears in Greek myth and literature."--Publishers Weekly
"Helen's face launched not only a thousand ships but also thousands of texts and artworks: Blondell's lucid, learned, but light-handed study shows why."--Glenn Most, University of Chicago
"A broad, subtle, and beautifully-written study that deserves a large and varied readership. Combining shrewd analysis with lightly-worn expertise, Blondell shows how Greek culture turned again and again to the myth of Helen to confront the disquieting power of female beauty."--Sheila Murnaghan, University of Pennsylvania
Review
"Blondell's stimulating and provocative book demonstrates how Helen is 'an ever-refreshing screen for the projection of ideas and ideals about beauty, women, sex and power.' Demonized, idolized, allegorized, or humanized, Helen of Troy remains no woman and every woman."--Bookslut
"A compelling new portrait of the most famous femme fatale in history as she appears in Greek myth and literature."--Publishers Weekly
"Readers need not be scholars of Greek poetry and culture to appreciate this engaging look at an epic tale with modern resonance." --Booklist
"If you have an appreciation for the classics or even just strong feminine roles, you will want to pick this book up. It will easily become a favorite amongst the rest of your library for years to come."--citybookreview.com
"An entertaining and lively narrative"--Library Journal
"A marvelously comprehensive look at Helen of Troy and her interpretations--literary, dramatic, and historical-through the ages. Every dimension of the myth of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and immortal in memory, is explored and analyzed. It leaves you awed and enlightened."--Margaret George, author of Helen of Troy and The Memoirs of Cleopatra
"Helen's face launched not only a thousand ships but also thousands of texts and artworks: Blondell's lucid, learned, but light-handed study shows why."--Glenn Most, University of Chicago
"A broad, subtle, and beautifully-written study that deserves a large and varied readership. Combining shrewd analysis with lightly-worn expertise, Blondell shows how Greek culture turned again and again to the myth of Helen to confront the disquieting power of female beauty."--Sheila Murnaghan, University of Pennsylvania
Synopsis
Ancient Greek culture is pervaded by a profound ambivalence regarding female beauty. It is an awe-inspiring, supremely desirable gift from the gods, essential to the perpetuation of a man's name through reproduction; yet it also grants women terrifying power over men, posing a threat inseparable from its allure. The myth of Helen is the central site in which the ancient Greeks expressed and reworked their culture's anxieties about erotic desire. Despite the passage of three millennia, contemporary culture remains almost obsessively preoccupied with all the power and danger of female beauty and sexuality that Helen still represents. Yet Helen, the embodiment of these concerns for our purported cultural ancestors, has been little studied from this perspective.
Such issues are also central to contemporary feminist thought.
Helen of Troy engages with the ancient origins of the persistent anxiety about female beauty, focusing on this key figure from ancient Greek culture in a way that both extends our understanding of that culture and provides a useful perspective for reconsidering aspects of our own. Moving from Homer and Hesiod to Sappho, Aeschylus, and Euripides, Ruby Blondell offers a fresh examination of the paradoxes and ambiguities that Helen embodies. In addition to literary sources, Blondell considers the archaeological record, which contains evidence of Helen's role as a cult figure, worshipped by maidens and newlyweds. The result is a compelling new interpretation of this alluring figure.
Synopsis
Three millennia after the myth of Helen, our relationship to female beauty remains deeply ambivalent, fraught with both desire and danger. We worship and fear it, advertise it everywhere yet try desperately to control and contain it.
In Helen of Troy Ruby Blondell investigates the origins of our persistent anxiety about female beauty, focusing on this key figure from ancient Greek culture in a way that both extends our understanding of that culture and provides a useful perspective on our own. Moving from Homer and Hesiod to Sappho, Aeschylus, Euripides, and others, Blondell offers a fresh examination of the paradoxes and ambiguities that Helen embodies. Other mythic women may be more violent but none wreaks more havoc than Helen. She is simultaneously the most desirable and most destructive. She causes the greatest war of all time when she elopes with the Trojan prince Paris, bringing her Greek husband, Menelaus, and thousands of Greek warriors in hot pursuit. Blondell shows that this is Helen's mythic essence: the beauty is inalienable, the destruction inevitable. For ancient Greeks, female beauty is an awe-inspiring, supremely desirable gift from the gods, essential to the perpetuation of a man's name through reproduction; yet it also grants women terrifying power over men, posing a threat inseparable from its allure. Three thousand years later, contemporary culture remains almost obsessively preoccupied with all the power and danger of female beauty and sexuality that Helen represents.
Considering all aspects of the Helen myth-including the archaeological record, which contains evidence of her status as a cult figure, worshipped by maidens and newlyweds alike-Helen of Troy holds up a fascinating mirror to our own time.
About the Author
Ruby Blondell is Professor of Classics at the University of Washington.
Table of Contents
Illustrations
Preface
1. The Problem of Female Beauty
2. Helen, Daughter of Zeus
3. Self-Blame and Self-Assertion: the Iliad
4. Happily Ever After? The Odyssey
5. Refractions of Homer's Helen: Archaic Lyric
6. Behind the Scenes: Aeschylus' Oresteia
7. Spartan Woman and Spartan Goddess: Herodotus
8. Playing Defense: Gorgias' Encomium of Helen
9. Enter Helen: Euripides' Trojan Women
10. Two-Faced Helen: the Helen of Euripides
11. Helen MacGuffin: Isocrates
Epilogue
Bibliographical Notes
Bibliography
Index