Helen of Troy
From Homer to Hollywood
1. Edition April 2009
280 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Short Description
In this engaging work, Laurie Maguire investigates the long and flourishing history of representations of Helen of Troy, from Homer to the present day in literature, art, drama and film. She explores the issues of sexual ethics, religion, and politics through responses to the story of Helen of Troy throughout the ages and shows how the Helen myth has relevance to current gender debates. Delving into her double nature as both cause and prize of the Trojan war, Helen of Troy critically examines the myth, its enduring place in literary imagination, and its relevance today.
Further versions
Helen of Troy: From Homer to Hollywood is a comprehensive literary biography of Helen of Troy, which explores the ways in which her story has been told and retold in almost every century from the ancient world to the modern day.
* Takes readers on an epic voyage into the literary representations of a woman who has wielded a great influence on Western cultural consciousness for more than three millennia
* Features a wide and diverse variety of literary sources, including epic, drama, novels, poems, film, comedy, and opera, and works by Homer, Euripides, Chaucer, Shakespeare
* Includes an analysis of a radio play by the prize-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and a Faust play by a contemporary Scottish playwright
* Explores themes such as narrative difficulties in portraying Helen, how legal history relates to her story, and how writers apportion blame or exculpate her
* Considers the aesthetic and narrative difficulties that ensue when literature translates myth
Preface
Source
Acknowledgments
Conventions
Introduction: Ab ovo
1. Narrating Myth
2. Beauty
3. Abducting Helen
4. Blame
5. Helen and the Faust Tradition
6. Parodying Helen
Notes
References
Index
"Maguire's book is an unusually effective study of something often invoked in an airy sort of way but difficult to represent concretely and cogently: literature and related arts as an ongoing and continuously motivated enterprise, sometimes almost collective in its workings across great stretches of time." (Translation & Literature, 2010)
"M.'s survey is impressively broad in scope ... .An impressive achievement." (The Classical Journal, February 2010)
"Erudite and entertaining ... .We are certainly better equipped to understand the phenomenon of such a mysterious narrative lacuna by the end of Maguire's inspirational book." (The Times Literary Supplement, November 2009)
"Combining wit, learning, and insight, Maguire offers delightful reading both for the specialist and for the serious general reader." (Library Journal, May 2009)
