In ordinary life an Athenian woman was allowed no accomplishments beyond leading a quiet and exemplary existence as wife and mother. Her glory was to have no glory. In Greek tragedy, however, women die violently and, through violence, master their own fate. It is a genre that delights in blurring the formal frontier between masculine and feminine. Through the subtlety of her reading of these powerful and ambiguous texts, Nicole Loraux elicits an array of insights into Greek attitudes toward death, sexuality, and gender.
In ordinary life an Athenian woman was allowed no accomplishments beyond leading a quiet, exemplary existence as wife and mother. In Greek tragedy, however, women die violently and, through violence, master their fate. Through her reading of these texts, Loraux elicits an array of insights into Greek attitudes toward death, sexuality, and gender.
