Pandora's Senses: The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text
by Vered Lev Kenaan
University of Wisconsin Press, 2010 Cloth: 978-0-299-22410-3 | eISBN: 978-0-299-22413-4 | Paper: 978-0-299-22414-1 Library of Congress Classification PN57.P255K46 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 880.9351
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The notorious image of Pandora haunts mythology: a woman created as punishment for the crimes of man, she is the bearer of hope yet also responsible for the Earth’s desolation. She binds together perpetuating dichotomies that underlie the most fundamental aspects of the Western canon: beauty and evil, body and soul, depth and superficiality, truth and lie. Speaking in multiplicity, Pandora emerges as the first sign of female complexity.
In this compelling study, Vered Lev Kenaan offers a radical revision of the Greek myth of the first woman. She argues that Pandora leaves a decisive mark on ancient poetics and shows that we can unravel the profound impact of Pandora’s image once we recognize that Pandora embodies the very idea of the ancient literary text. Locating the myth of the first woman right at the heart of feminist interrogation of gender and textuality, Pandora’s Senses moves beyond a feminist critique of masculine hegemony by challenging the reading of Pandora as a one-dimensional embodiment of the misogynist vision of the feminine. Uncovering Pandora as a textual principle operating outside of the feminine, Lev Kenaan shows the centrality of this iconic figure among the poetics of such central genres as the cosmological and didactic epic, the Platonic dialogue, the love elegy, and the ancient novel. Pandora’s Senses innovates our understanding of gender as a critical lens through which to view ancient literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Vered Lev Kenaan is senior lecturer of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of Haifa.
REVIEWS
“A provocative and well-supported reading of a familiar myth and its hidden metamorphoses. Elegantly written, this daring book will make an important contribution not only to the study of classics and mythology but also to interpretations of women's roles in literature and cultural history.”—David Konstan, John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Humanistic Tradition at Brown University and the author of The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks
“In this exhilarating and far-ranging study Vered Lev Kenaan takes the lid off Pandora as mythical figuration of primal plexity. First textualized by Hesiod with repercussions throughout the cultures of Antiquity, not least in Plato’s and others’ rough hands, Pandoran femininity will collide with treacherous Ovid’s lascivious imagination, releasing ever more irresistible mystique and mystery. Lev Kenaan brings to life a powerful vision of the poetics of literature figured as feminine.”—John Henderson, University of Cambridge, editor and translator of Asinaria
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
1. Pandora's Light
Pandora, Once Again
The Genealogy of Pandora
Misogynist Responses to Pandora
Pandora's Wonder
2. Pandora and the Myth of Otherness
From Mount Helicon to a Poetics of Otherness
The Fantasy of Symbiosis between Men and Gods
Ambiguities of Identity: The Case of Brothers
The Loss of Sameness and the Birth of Eros
The Didactic Imperative: Learn the Other
3. The Socratic Pandora
Woman Is the Ideal Listener
The Naked Truth and the Adorned Lie
The Seductions of Pandora
Socrates and Theodite
Socrates and Pandora
4. Pandora's Voice and the Emergence of Ovid's Poetic Persona
Pandora's Voice
From the Effeminate Elegy to the Feminine Text
The Erotodidactic Persona
Sappho's Lasciviousness
The Lascivious Text
5. Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text
Ars and Remedia: Metadiscourse, Language Games, and the Problem of Sincerity
The Palinodic Structure
Palinode and Narrative
Pandora's Lie
A Girl's Rape and the Birth of Feminine Subjectivity
6. Pandora's Tears
Feminine Weaving: Text, Textile, Body, Pain
Helen's Web
Listening Like a Woman: Penelope's Tears
Odysseus Weeps Like a Woman
Xanthippe's Tears
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Introduction
1. Pandora's Light
Pandora, Once Again
The Genealogy of Pandora
Misogynist Responses to Pandora
Pandora's Wonder
2. Pandora and the Myth of Otherness
From Mount Helicon to a Poetics of Otherness
The Fantasy of Symbiosis between Men and Gods
Ambiguities of Identity: The Case of Brothers
The Loss of Sameness and the Birth of Eros
The Didactic Imperative: Learn the Other
3. The Socratic Pandora
Woman Is the Ideal Listener
The Naked Truth and the Adorned Lie
The Seductions of Pandora
Socrates and Theodite
Socrates and Pandora
4. Pandora's Voice and the Emergence of Ovid's Poetic Persona
Pandora's Voice
From the Effeminate Elegy to the Feminine Text
The Erotodidactic Persona
Sappho's Lasciviousness
The Lascivious Text
5. Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text
Ars and Remedia: Metadiscourse, Language Games, and the Problem of Sincerity
The Palinodic Structure
Palinode and Narrative
Pandora's Lie
A Girl's Rape and the Birth of Feminine Subjectivity
6. Pandora's Tears
Feminine Weaving: Text, Textile, Body, Pain
Helen's Web
Listening Like a Woman: Penelope's Tears
Odysseus Weeps Like a Woman
Xanthippe's Tears
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Pandora's Senses: The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text
by Vered Lev Kenaan
University of Wisconsin Press, 2010 Cloth: 978-0-299-22410-3 eISBN: 978-0-299-22413-4 Paper: 978-0-299-22414-1
The notorious image of Pandora haunts mythology: a woman created as punishment for the crimes of man, she is the bearer of hope yet also responsible for the Earth’s desolation. She binds together perpetuating dichotomies that underlie the most fundamental aspects of the Western canon: beauty and evil, body and soul, depth and superficiality, truth and lie. Speaking in multiplicity, Pandora emerges as the first sign of female complexity.
In this compelling study, Vered Lev Kenaan offers a radical revision of the Greek myth of the first woman. She argues that Pandora leaves a decisive mark on ancient poetics and shows that we can unravel the profound impact of Pandora’s image once we recognize that Pandora embodies the very idea of the ancient literary text. Locating the myth of the first woman right at the heart of feminist interrogation of gender and textuality, Pandora’s Senses moves beyond a feminist critique of masculine hegemony by challenging the reading of Pandora as a one-dimensional embodiment of the misogynist vision of the feminine. Uncovering Pandora as a textual principle operating outside of the feminine, Lev Kenaan shows the centrality of this iconic figure among the poetics of such central genres as the cosmological and didactic epic, the Platonic dialogue, the love elegy, and the ancient novel. Pandora’s Senses innovates our understanding of gender as a critical lens through which to view ancient literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Vered Lev Kenaan is senior lecturer of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of Haifa.
REVIEWS
“A provocative and well-supported reading of a familiar myth and its hidden metamorphoses. Elegantly written, this daring book will make an important contribution not only to the study of classics and mythology but also to interpretations of women's roles in literature and cultural history.”—David Konstan, John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Humanistic Tradition at Brown University and the author of The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks
“In this exhilarating and far-ranging study Vered Lev Kenaan takes the lid off Pandora as mythical figuration of primal plexity. First textualized by Hesiod with repercussions throughout the cultures of Antiquity, not least in Plato’s and others’ rough hands, Pandoran femininity will collide with treacherous Ovid’s lascivious imagination, releasing ever more irresistible mystique and mystery. Lev Kenaan brings to life a powerful vision of the poetics of literature figured as feminine.”—John Henderson, University of Cambridge, editor and translator of Asinaria
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
1. Pandora's Light
Pandora, Once Again
The Genealogy of Pandora
Misogynist Responses to Pandora
Pandora's Wonder
2. Pandora and the Myth of Otherness
From Mount Helicon to a Poetics of Otherness
The Fantasy of Symbiosis between Men and Gods
Ambiguities of Identity: The Case of Brothers
The Loss of Sameness and the Birth of Eros
The Didactic Imperative: Learn the Other
3. The Socratic Pandora
Woman Is the Ideal Listener
The Naked Truth and the Adorned Lie
The Seductions of Pandora
Socrates and Theodite
Socrates and Pandora
4. Pandora's Voice and the Emergence of Ovid's Poetic Persona
Pandora's Voice
From the Effeminate Elegy to the Feminine Text
The Erotodidactic Persona
Sappho's Lasciviousness
The Lascivious Text
5. Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text
Ars and Remedia: Metadiscourse, Language Games, and the Problem of Sincerity
The Palinodic Structure
Palinode and Narrative
Pandora's Lie
A Girl's Rape and the Birth of Feminine Subjectivity
6. Pandora's Tears
Feminine Weaving: Text, Textile, Body, Pain
Helen's Web
Listening Like a Woman: Penelope's Tears
Odysseus Weeps Like a Woman
Xanthippe's Tears
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Introduction
1. Pandora's Light
Pandora, Once Again
The Genealogy of Pandora
Misogynist Responses to Pandora
Pandora's Wonder
2. Pandora and the Myth of Otherness
From Mount Helicon to a Poetics of Otherness
The Fantasy of Symbiosis between Men and Gods
Ambiguities of Identity: The Case of Brothers
The Loss of Sameness and the Birth of Eros
The Didactic Imperative: Learn the Other
3. The Socratic Pandora
Woman Is the Ideal Listener
The Naked Truth and the Adorned Lie
The Seductions of Pandora
Socrates and Theodite
Socrates and Pandora
4. Pandora's Voice and the Emergence of Ovid's Poetic Persona
Pandora's Voice
From the Effeminate Elegy to the Feminine Text
The Erotodidactic Persona
Sappho's Lasciviousness
The Lascivious Text
5. Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text
Ars and Remedia: Metadiscourse, Language Games, and the Problem of Sincerity
The Palinodic Structure
Palinode and Narrative
Pandora's Lie
A Girl's Rape and the Birth of Feminine Subjectivity
6. Pandora's Tears
Feminine Weaving: Text, Textile, Body, Pain
Helen's Web
Listening Like a Woman: Penelope's Tears
Odysseus Weeps Like a Woman
Xanthippe's Tears
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE