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Title: Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality by Bruce S. Thornton ISBN: 0-8133-3225-7 Publisher: Perseus Books Group Pub. Date: 01 December, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Confused Rant
Comment: The Kirkus review is right on target. This book is an ugly, confused invective by an acolyte of the embittered former classics scholar Victor Davis Hanson. Thorton seems to mistake personal disappointments for scholarly argument.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent!
Comment: ... as for the Kirkus review, well ... it's just plane stupid.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Sane and Much Needed Perspective
Comment: First of all, ignore the ridiculous Kirkus review of this book! Bruce Thorton's "Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality" is a badly needed voice of sanity on this subject. Indeed, as Thorton himself says, "Most of the writing on ancient sexuality these days grinds the evidence in the mill of an 'advocacy agenda' supported by some fashionable theory that says more about the crisis of Western rationalism than it does about ancient Greece." He could have been talking about the Kirkus review. By thoroughly examining the ancient sources themselves, Thornton reveals what the Greeks actually thought and said about sexual relationships.
The Greeks understood, perhaps, something we moderns do not; the Greeks understood the "inhuman chaos of nature" and perceived human order as the triumph of the mind and culture over the brute forces of nature. Eros, Thornton explains, is not "love" but "sexual desire." It is a representation of how sex attacks the mind and breaks man's will. Eros is a "disease of the soul." Consequently, sexual attraction as madness is a theme that recurs throughout Greek literature. The Greeks saw sex and violence as two sides of the same irrational coin.
To the Greek way of thinking, mind must control the irrational. Subjection to passion and appetite is a form of slavery. The Greeks understood that women possess "a power that speaks to the irrational in men." And ultimately, "what disturbs men about women is what disturbs men about themselves...." Unlike those who would like to portray women as powerless victims of a male patriarchy, Thorton shows how and why the Greeks saw female erotic power as dangerous; it intensifies the chaotic passion of all humans. Women in ancient Greece were not powerless; "one does not fear what one perceives to be powerless." As Thorton points out, "The modern reductive view of Greek women as oppressed victim tells us very little about antiquity yet quite a lot about the late-twentieth-century politics of victimhood...."
Thornton does discuss pederasty and the symposium in his book and places them in their proper context. The habitually passive homosexual was considered unnatural and an aberation in the Greek world. He goes on to explain why the family and the production of heirs and future citizens was so important; legitimacy was much more important for an ancient Greek than it is in our modern society. He explains why the Greek wife, unlike her depiction in so many recent works, was so crucial to the smooth functioning of the society. The quality most sought after in a wife was self-control as she was the person charged with the management of the household. The Greek household was not a simple home as we moderns recognize it. Household management was an important function that included the management of the slaves, raising the children, the spinning of wool, the weaving of cloth, and overseeing agriculture as well as a hundred other crucial tasks. Many Greek households were mini-factories or estates. Greek men and women formed a joint enterprise.
This is a work of sanity that returns to what the Greeks themselves actually said about sexual relations. It presents a more balanced picture of Greek sexuality than the many writings that depict the Greeks as some sort of aberrant culture in order to further a political agenda. Sure they were different than we are, but human nature has pretty much remained constant over the last several thousand years. Perhaps that is Thornton's greatest sin in the eyes of some; he dares to portray women in ancient Greece as not powerless victims, but partners in the joint management of Greek society. Read this book if you want a clearer picture of what the Greek world was all about.
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Title: Plagues of the Mind : The New Epidemic of False Knowledge by Bruce S. Thornton ISBN: 188292634X Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) Pub. Date: November, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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