Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Knopf (2005), Edition: 1st, 496 pages
Description
For close to three thousand years, Helen of Troy has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek king Menelaus and the Trojan prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for an enduring enmity between East and West. But who was she? Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Age of Heroes; the focus of a cult that conflated Helen the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess; the home-wrecker of the Iliad; the bitch-whore of Greek tragedy; the pin-up of Romantic artists. Focusing on a flesh-and-blood aristocrat from the Greek Bronze Age, cultural and social historian Hughes reconstructs the context of her life. Through the eyes of a young Mycenaean princess, Hughes examines the physical, historical, and cultural traces that Helen has left on locations in Greece, North Africa, and Asia Minor.--From publisher description.… (more)
Media reviews
Bettany Hughes berättande är inspirerat och levande, med ett direkt och naturligt men samtidigt målande språk (och Margareta Eklöfs översättning utgör inga hinder). Tonen är avslappnad men nyfiken och fylld av "tänk om
" och "föreställ er att
".
Hon är den första som lanserar Helena som en framstående bronsålderspersonlighet snarare än som en dunkel myt, och till stor del har hon lyckats.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Garp83
When I first started this wonderful book by Bettany Hughes, I was disappointed that it was not specifically just about the Bronze Age world that the real or mythic Helen occupied, and concerned that Hughes’ would be hawking a simplistic feminist thesis of the centrality of Helen to Western
In fact, in this long, well written and richly detailed work, I was delighted to be proven wrong.
Hughes has devoted significant serious scholarship to the study of Helen as a potential historical character as well as noting probably every instance where Helen appears as a mythic character, as well as noting probably every reference to Helen in literature, popular culture or even vague allusion for the last three millennia.
This is a multi-disciplinary approach that reaches across the lines between history and archaeology and anthropology and myth and poetry and literature and – well, everything – to deliver as definitive of a treatment as I believe could ever be possible of Helen of Troy. This could never hope to achieve the author’s aims if Hughes was not simply a true academic scholar who footnotes everything, but also a truly outstanding writer of a magnificent narrative. It was only in reading the second half of this thick work that I came to appreciate what her goals were and likewise to credit her with accomplishing these in this fine work.
If you think it is stretching a thesis to suggest that Helen pervades our culture long after Homer, long after classical Greece and ancient Rome, be prepared to discover Helen as a central character again and again, even in most unlikely places like the musings of medieval monks and on the stage of Elizabethan London.
I learned so much from this book – not only about the Bronze Age and archaic world I initially sought to further explore -- but about so many other seemingly unrelated aspects of history and western civilization, that I will without hesitation recommend this book to all with even the most peripheral interest in the subject. You will not regret it.
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Civilization. In fact, in this long, well written and richly detailed work, I was delighted to be proven wrong.
Hughes has devoted significant serious scholarship to the study of Helen as a potential historical character as well as noting probably every instance where Helen appears as a mythic character, as well as noting probably every reference to Helen in literature, popular culture or even vague allusion for the last three millennia.
This is a multi-disciplinary approach that reaches across the lines between history and archaeology and anthropology and myth and poetry and literature and – well, everything – to deliver as definitive of a treatment as I believe could ever be possible of Helen of Troy. This could never hope to achieve the author’s aims if Hughes was not simply a true academic scholar who footnotes everything, but also a truly outstanding writer of a magnificent narrative. It was only in reading the second half of this thick work that I came to appreciate what her goals were and likewise to credit her with accomplishing these in this fine work.
If you think it is stretching a thesis to suggest that Helen pervades our culture long after Homer, long after classical Greece and ancient Rome, be prepared to discover Helen as a central character again and again, even in most unlikely places like the musings of medieval monks and on the stage of Elizabethan London.
I learned so much from this book – not only about the Bronze Age and archaic world I initially sought to further explore -- but about so many other seemingly unrelated aspects of history and western civilization, that I will without hesitation recommend this book to all with even the most peripheral interest in the subject. You will not regret it.
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LibraryThing member riverwillow
This is an interesting book as it examines the representation of Helen of Troy throughout the ages and, despite some bad reviews on Amazon, one that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Bettany Hughes is not a typical academic writer as she provides ancedotes of her visits to museums and excavation sites
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connected to the Helen story, but these add colour and interest to the book as Helen's story is a universal one of politics, love, lust and betrayal. Show Less
LibraryThing member anyotherbizniz
Yes I enjoyed it, but it was a bit overlong and repetitive. Wonderfully researched though and worth reading the whole book just to be brought up short in the middle of a lengthy analysis of the history and myth of Helen by the phrase " Aphrodite acts as Helen's fluffer".
I read this immediateley
All the chapters are very short and most are very self contained, so it did look a bit like she had got all her students to write essays and then cobbled them together, with the left over bits dropped into the appendices.
Good read though.
I read this immediateley
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after reading Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff, and enjoyed it much more. Both iconic female characters from the ancient world, and although much, much more is known for sure about Cleopatra (after all, she was definitively real)lots is unknown about both. But wheras Schiff the journalist slips into Terry Devlin mode every time she discusses unknown areas of Cleopatra's life, with Huighes she either puts the bones of her research on show and/or makes a stylish segue into myth and legend. All the chapters are very short and most are very self contained, so it did look a bit like she had got all her students to write essays and then cobbled them together, with the left over bits dropped into the appendices.
Good read though.
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LibraryThing member BobH1
This is a weighty erudite tome covering, as other reviewers have said, more than just the bronze age greek origins of Helen. I expected it to be slow going and a hard read. It wasn't, it was almost in the "un-put-down-able" category. I can't comment on the accuracy of the book all I can say is that
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it chimes with what little I do know and that having read the book I now know a great deal more. Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
Hughes tries to do a little too much in this work, melding the possible historical princess of Sparta, who would have been married off as a preteen, with the intensely sexual vision of Helen in later art and literature.
LibraryThing member pierthinker
Ancient history has never been my thing, but if all ancient history books are like this one, then bring it on! Hughes paints an extraordinary picture of life in ancient Greece, focusing on the most famous name from her times - Helen of Troy. While never forgetting there is no evidence that Helen
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was an actual person, Hughes describes the life and times of princesses of that era and speculates persuasively on the possibility of Helen as a real person. This book, clearly written for a general audience, but never condescending or over-simplified, draws a continuous line from those ancients through history to our own times and I, for one, came away believing that a Helen of Troy certainly existed and swayed the politics and history of the eastern Mediterranean 3,500 years ago. Show Less
LibraryThing member Lukerik
If you're looking to find out about Helen of Troy then this is the book for you.
I read Euripides's play first and was struck by Helen's similarities to Jesus - I read it from a post-Christian perspective. This book really helped me to understand how the Greeks would have seen Helen. Hughes is
My one complaint is that the footnotes are a mixture of references and fascinating asides that should be part of the main text. There are many hundreds of footnotes so the flow of your reading is constantly interupted, often only to be told that it's ibid.
I read Euripides's play first and was struck by Helen's similarities to Jesus - I read it from a post-Christian perspective. This book really helped me to understand how the Greeks would have seen Helen. Hughes is
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actually quite profound when discussing Helen as an eidelon.My one complaint is that the footnotes are a mixture of references and fascinating asides that should be part of the main text. There are many hundreds of footnotes so the flow of your reading is constantly interupted, often only to be told that it's ibid.
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LibraryThing member vguy
Very lively , very learned, just a bit too long?
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
496 p.; 9.53 inches
ISBN
1400041783 / 9781400041787
Local notes
FB What would Helen of Sparta's life have been like if she actually existed? Author uses Helen's life to illustrate women's lives in Bronze Age Greece.