Before Sexuality:
The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World
Edited by Froma I. Zeitlin, John J. Winkler and David M. Halperin

Paper | 1991 | $57.50 / £34.95
552 pp.

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A dream in which a man has sex with his mother may promise him political or commercial success--according to dream interpreters of late antiquity, who, unlike modern Western analysts, would not necessarily have drawn conclusions from the dream about the dreamer's sexual psychology. Evidence of such shifts in perspective is leading scholars to reconsider in a variety of creative ways the history of sexuality. In these fifteen original essays, eminent cultural historians and classicists not only discuss sex, but demonstrate how norms, practices, and even the very definitions of what counts as sexual activity have varied significantly over time. Ancient Greece offers abundant evidence for a radically different set of sexual standards and behaviors from ours. Sex in ancient Hellenic culture assumed a variety of social and political meanings, whereas the modern development of a sex-centered model of personality now leads us to view sex as the key to understanding the individual. Drawing on both the Anglo-American tradition of cultural anthropology and the French tradition of les sciences humaines, these essays explore the iconography, politics, ethics, poetry, and medical practices that made sex in ancient Greece not a paradise of liberation but an exotic locale hardly recognizable to visitors from the modern world. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Peter Brown, Anne Carson, Franoise Frontisi-Ducroux, Maud W. Gleason, Ann Ellis Hanson, Franois Lissarrague, Nicole Loraux, Maurice Olender, S.R.F. Price, James Redfield, Giulia Sissa, and Jean-Pierre Vernant.

Review:

"[The contributors] have either renewed the study of traditional topics and sources . . . or brought neglected and marginalized topics centrally into the play of cultural history by means of their hermeneutic approach and omnivorous perspective."--The Times Literary Supplement

Other Princeton books by Froma I. Zeitlin:

• The Children of Athena: Athenian Ideas about Citizenship and the Division between the Sexes.
• Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays.
• Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context.

Another Princeton book by John J. Winkler:

• Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context.

Subject Areas:

• Classics
• Comparative Literature
• Gender Studies

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $57.50 ISBN13: 978-0-691-00221-7

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Paper: £34.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-00221-7

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File created: 7/1/2008

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