The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.82 (629 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0753822261 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 656 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-09-12 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Davidson's own scholarship is impressive, but worn lightly, and matched with an easy tone that makes The Greeks and Greek Love a lively, and often very funny, read LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS poses a radical challenge to prominent assumptions about same-sex love in ancient Greece OXONIAN REVIEW
. JAMES DAVIDSON is Reader in Ancient History at the University of Warwick. He is the author of COURTESANS AND FISHCAKES: THE CONSUMING PASSIONS OF CLASSICAL ATHENS (1997), and is a irregular contributor to The London Review of Books among other journals. He has written on a wide range of ancient topics, including the historiography of Roman imperialism, prostitution, drinking to get drunk, low-class mimes,
Davidson invents "gay parrhesia" Victor Menza Salle-boy gives no evidence of having read Davidson'smagnificent book--a book which is rife with newarguments. Thanks to this groundbreaking book it isnow possible to see Greek love in detail and in itsfull cultural expanse. Davidson shows constructivismfor the conceptual-evidentiary void that it is and hedoes this without recourse to anything remotely like"essentialism." His is the most free-flowing and openpiece of classical scholarship I have ever read. It'sabsolutely cl. Emile Lucien said A baggy thesis - a pot-pourri of fact, fiction and speculation. Those intelligent readers contemplating buying this book should first of all read Dr Thomas K. Hubbard's scholarly review which systematically and convincingly deals with Davidson's claims and exaggerations about Greek sexuality. The book is certainly a compendium of useful, even fascinating, information, but there are serious flaws in the scholarship which lead to many misleading assertions e.g. failure to distinguish reliable primary sources from less deserving ones, lack. Frustrating beyond belief Shaun Yip As a recent Classics & History student, I was enjoined and sometimes even commanded to write in a certain manner: clear, concise and to the point. All the better if you could do so with a writer's verve. But loose slang was frowned upon. Which leads me to ask how an academic could get away with a book so muddled in focus and language as to be utterly frustrating? I gather from the 'blurb' that this is supposed to be a 'radical reappraisal' of the subject. Does radical reapp
A radical reappraisal of homosexuality in Ancient Greece, by a young historian described as 'the best thing to happen to ancient history for decades' (Andrew Roberts, MAIL ON SUNDAY) Kenneth Dover's 1978 GREEK HOMOSEXUALITY remains the most recent single-volume treatment of the subject as a whole. Greek civilisation centrally underpins our own, providing a basis of so much of the west's culture and philosophy, yet the Greeks were more tolerant of homosexuality than virtually any other culture, certainly than the western civilisations that followed. Drawing on fifteen years of ensuing research, James Davidson rejects Dover's excessively theoretical approach, using a wide variety of sources unknown to him - court cases, romantic novels, satirical plays and poems - to present a view of the subject that, in contrast to Dover and to Foucault, stresses the humanity of the ancient Greeks, and how they lived their loves and pleasures, rather than their moral codes and the theorising of philosophers. The extent to which Greek attitudes to sexuality and in particular their privileging of 'Greek Love' w