As a Classics major, I’ve read a lot of Ancient Greek and Roman texts (shocking, I know). Throughout all of them, I’ve been intrigued by the different depictions of women in antiquity. For my case study I want to look at women in Ancient Greek literature, such as plays and epics, and talk about how they are depicted. I especially want to look at femininity and masculinity, as often times a woman who is standing up for herself is described in a masculine way, I think looking at women in regards to masculinity and femininity in Ancient Greek literature can really reveal expected behaviors. This is by no means a new idea (as evidence by me finding a whole companion piece for women in various antiquities), but gender expression and depictions of gender always interest me.

Mossman, J. (2007). Women’s Voices. In A Companion to Greek Tragedy, J. Gregory (Ed.). doi:10.1002/9780470996676.ch22 

This article is, as the title suggests, looking at women in Greek Tragedy. Medea and Clytemnestra, two of my favorites, both fall into this category. Tragedy is interesting in that it can be freeing for women, though they may be the ones causing it to be a tragedy. However it, and other plays, can also be harder on women as we have seen in this class. The article talks about how it is important to discuss and understand women in tragedy, as there are lots of cultural aspect that can be learned from it.

Pomeroy, Sarah B., and Xenophon. Oeconomicus. Clarendon Press, 1994. 

Part of the Oeconomicus deals directly with Xenophon’s belief of how a household should be run. It reveals a lot of cultural expectations of women, while also showing an interesting power dynamic between husbands and wives.

Franco, C. (2012). Women in Homer. In A Companion to Women in the Ancient World (eds S.L. James and S. Dillon). doi:10.1002/9781444355024.ch4 

As Odysseus is sleeping his way across the Mediterranean, there are a good number of women in The Odyssey, and obviously there has to be at least one woman in The Iliad. Famously The Odyssey has the catalogue of women. The article discusses a number of aspects of women in Homer, ranging from the cultural realities to female agency and the response of men.

One thing that stood out to me this week was Aristophanes’ part of the Symposium, where he details the three original genders.  I thought it was really cool that it showed up in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” especially the changes made to the story. 

I’ll start out by acknowledging how weird the story is.  Imagining humans rolling around like that is really weird.  I tried explaining it to some friends and we all agreed not to think too hard about the anatomy from before humans were split up.  However, at its heart, creative license as to the shape of humans aside, it is a story about soul mates.  Like Aubrey mentioned in class, it is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, known example of soul mates (I also welcome anyone correcting that statement). 

Personally, I like the idea of soul mates.  I’m a romantic optimist that way.  The thought that there is someone out there who is perfect for you certainly is appealing.  It guarantees that there is someone who will love you.  Someone who completes you.  However, there are plenty of problems with soul mates.  It limits people with the expectation that there is someone “who completes you,” when really, relationships are about communication and compromise.  To expect otherwise does a disservice to your partner. 

In thinking about this post, I’ve listened to “Origin of Love” a lot of times and some parts stood out to me.  It doesn’t really have a happy ending.  It has two people looking at each other who were once connected, but neither recognizes the other.  It compares love to pain.  A pain which comes from being separated from your other half.  It calls humans “Lonely two-legged creatures.”  It really emphasizes the tragic aspect of love, going so far as to call the origin of love a sad story.  We would not have love if we hadn’t been separated and become lonely.  It’s honestly quite a sad song despite it’s more upbeat tempo.   

Within Plato’s Symposium, there is the implication that, because Love hates old age, you have to find your soul mate when you are still young.  If you don’t, you will never find love.  Ignoring the ageism of this, it makes the concept of soul mates more tragic and like a threat.  You have to find it early, otherwise you will live your life without love.  In a way, the song accidentally captures that sense of melancholy at not being able to find your soul mate. 

Another thing I noticed with the song that surprised me is the lack of gender within it, given all the discussion of gender within “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”  While there is the discussion of the three different original sexes, they otherwise play it rather straight.  I found myself, upon repeat listens, wondering what group I’d be a part of.  At the most basic, gender at birth definition, I’d be one of the children of the moon.  However, that isn’t right, as I identify as male.  But given the imagery that went along with the song, there seems an emphasis on biological sex, which was very interesting given the songwriter, Hedwig, is trans herself.  The song just left me with very mixed feelings.  I love the rhythms, and I find the emphasis on the sadness of love interesting.  However, I’m also saddened by said sadness of love, as well as from the exclusion of trans and non-binary folks from it.  While that is also true for the source material, given the inclusion of every god under the sun, not just Greek gods, I am curious why creative license didn’t add even a glimpse of nontraditional genders. 

When Jody asked us to pick out a song about love and share it with others, I was, I’ll admit, a little scared.  By asking us, she was essentially asking us to reveal something deeply personal to other people.  Music is extremely personal by itself – it can tell you so much about a person – and to add love on top of it is enough to make anyone balk. 

I know I’ve mentioned it before (and will definitely mention it again), but I was in Professor Salés’ Eros class last semester, where we actually read Plato’s Symposium.  But Professor Salés took it one step further and had us all write our own symposium on what we think love is, and speak it to the class.  If that wasn’t revealing oneself, I don’t know what is.  What was incredibly cool was that everyone had a different idea as to the nature of love.  It was truly personal and genuinely amazing to hear. 

While not quite on the same level of openness, sharing a song about love is definitely up there.  (I will pause here and applaud the people who shared their songs with the whole class, especially Alyssa who got pressured into it by our group).  Since I didn’t share my song (and am quite glad I didn’t), I wanted to talk about it here in this much less personal medium. 

I thought a lot about it.  There are plenty of songs that are about love – Far too many to count.  There are some I listen to and vibe with and others I don’t.  However, I actually went with a song that doesn’t use the word love at all.  The song I chose was “Into the West” by Annie Lennox.  It is most commonly known as the end song for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.  Rather nerdy, I know.  The song has the singer telling the unseen listener to sleep now and not be sad, for though the two are parting ways, they shall see each other again.  Wonderfully depressing (there’s literally a line about hope fading.) 

Quick lore dump.  I promise I will not get too far into the weeds.  In Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Gandalf, along with all the elves, are leaving Middle Earth forever to return to Valinor, which is where the elves originally came from.  It is the closing of the adventure, and the end of the elves.  Lord of the Rings is filled with a sense of sadness and loss, as the power and magic of the elves fades away, until it disappears forever with the elves leaving.  The song is thus filled with that same sense of loss.  Like I said, pretty depressing.  Though the lyrics do say that they shall meet again someday, it doesn’t exactly end on a high note. 

As for why this song sticks out to me for love, that has to do with my father.  He is a big Tolkien fan, actually taught himself elvish, and is overall quite geeky.  When I was a child, he sang this song to me as a lullaby.  (He also would sing me “Castle on a Cloud” from Les Misérables, so you can tell he wasn’t a fan of upbeat lullabies.)  Despite the crying and sadness in the song, it now is comforts me.  It reminds me of my father’s love and helps me relax from whatever stress as piled on in my life.  This song is what I think of when I think of love – caring, comforting, and, if a bit sad, holds the hope that another day will come. 

Between Lysistrata last week and the feminist takes on Foucault and his theories this week, we have seen a lot of women, modern and classical.  However, I want to take a moment to talk about one of my favorite women in antiquity: Clytemnestra.  I first read Aeschylus’ play Agamemnon last year and have reread it multiple times.  From it I have the firmly held belief that Clytemnestra did nothing wrong. 

Agamemnon, the first part of the Oresteia, follows Clytemnestra as her husband Agamemnon returns home after having been off fighting in the Trojan War.  Fun fact: Helen is Clytemnestra’s half-sister (with Helen’s father being Zeus), while Agamemnon and Menelaus are brothers.  Back to the play, Agamemnon returns successfully from the war with a woman, Cassandra, as a war prize.  It might not have been the best idea for him to come back home with a concubine but that is actually the least of his sins as far as Clytemnestra is concerned.  You see, before setting sail for Troy, Agamemnon had upset one of the gods, who prevented Agamemnon’s ships from sailing.  In order for him to actually make it to Troy, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the gods.  Once he returns home, Clytemnestra kills him and Cassandra, and they all live happily ever after. 

Not really, of course.  This is a tragedy after all, and we can’t have a woman killing a man without some recompense.  But I’m going to ignore the other two parts of the Oresteia.  I want to, instead, focus on the characterization of Clytemnestra.  After Clytemnestra has killed Agamemnon, she argues with the Chorus, who represent the elders (men) of Argos.  The Chorus talks about how she has done a terrible crime, and how the gods will punish her, while she defends herself, citing the murder of her child as justification.  One death answered by another.  Though brutal, it is a form of justice.  Clytemnestra had been wronged by Agamemnon, and she got revenge.  However, because she is a woman, this is not a heroic moment.  Instead, it eventually leads to Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, killing her in an act of revenge. 

In a way, this reminds me of Lysistrata, where the men are too busy gawking to actually listen to what Lysistrata is saying.  She is delivering a well articulated, well thought out speech with very important points, and the men are too busy seeing her as a woman to take anything she says seriously. 

While it is telling that as a woman Clytemnestra wasn’t allowed the same sort of revenge as one would expect a man to seek out, what is more interesting is the last hundred lines of the play.  At the very end of the play, a new guy, Aegisthus, shows up.  He is the cousin of Agamemnon and, for long and convoluted reasons including a hellish family tree and wife stealing, he hates Agamemnon.  Supposedly, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra came up with the plan to kill Agamemnon as revenge for their numerous complaints.  However, Aegisthus is never referenced earlier in the play and he only shows up in the last one hundred lines.  He just comes in and claims all the credit for killing Agamemnon, even though Clytemnestra did all the work.  This ending reminds me a lot of the ending of Lysistrata where, having completely her role, Lysistrata completely disappears form the end of the play.  While Clytemnestra sticks around and actually has the last words of the play, she loses all the agency and character that had carried her through the play.  She goes from a strong woman, taking matters into her own hands, to a woman clinging onto a man a desperately asking for the violence to stop.  It is a very disorienting shift that I feel reveals a lot about the expectations of women in Ancient Athens. 

I really enjoyed the readings we had for this week.  In the past, I have really only read Ancient Greek tragedies, so this was a nice change of pace.  Granted, I had read Lysistrata previously in Professor Salés’ History of Sexuality course, though this was a different translation.  Which actually brings me to one of the questions that was briefly talked about in the fishbowl discussion, but that I want to go into more detail.  I want to talk about the translation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata done by Jeffrey Henderson. 

Originally published in 1988, Henderson’s translation uses very modern language and idioms.  Some of them are obvious, like translating the Ancient Greek slag for a vagina into the modern slang.  Only a specific audience will read a line about piggies and understand the humor behind it. 

However, some of the translation goes into a more questionable realm, at least in my opinion.  There are at multiple points a Christianization of the texts, such as the change from Charon to Saint Peter.  Or at another point the women let out a chorus of amens.  It sticks out, as there are plenty of references throughout the play to gods in the Greek pantheon.  Yet he decides to translate certain parts into a Christian context.  In the discussion one person said it was infantilizing, as the translator didn’t think that his audience would know who Charon is.  While this was originally published before anyone could easily look a name up real quick on the internet, I agree that it is rather infantilizing of his audience in that assumption.  He even included a footnote attached to Saint Peter that explained who Charon was, so there was no reason to change Charon to Saint Peter is he was already going to include a footnote. 

Granted, I am not saying the other translation I have read is perfect.  There are a number of problems in it, including, but not limited to, the usage of accents for the people from different cities.  While this is being faithful to Aristophanes’ writing, one has to be careful what accents they assign which city.  This particular translation represented Athens with a more proper English accent, while Sparta was given a Scottish accent, which doesn’t accurately represent the relationship that the two cities had.   

Overall, I appreciated that some of the jokes were made more accessible, or at least understandable, to a modern audience.  Older translations aren’t always the best at accurately representing dirty humor, which Lysistrata is filled with.  Yet I am left wondering what was lost in the translation.  What relationships, described by Greek myths, aren’t represented because Henderson left the reference out of his translation.  Translation is difficult, especially comedy.  However, I think it is important for translators to think about why they are translating a piece and their responsibility to the past in presenting these pieces anew. 

During class, the topic of labels, specifically in the LGBT+ community, came up.  This really stuck with me, as I have had numerous discussions with straight cisgender family members about the myriad of labels included in the LGBT+ community.  It has been, affectionately, described as alphabet soup.  Which is understandable.  I, like most people, would not be able to tell you the full acronym without looking it up.  There isn’t really a clear consensus of what the full acronym even is.  Some people argue that with so many labels included that the acronym has lost its meaning.  Ask a handful of different people and they will tell you many different meanings for the A, like Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, Ally.  There is debate as to whether or not intersex people should be included in the community, with many intersex people themselves divided on the issue.  The inclusion in the full acronym of two Qs, in general standing for Queer and Questioning, has also cause tension, as there are many people who still see queer as a slur and do not identify with it while others have taken back the word and find it central to their identity. 

With all the drama surrounding the acronym, some question whether it is worth it to even have all the letters.  Why is there a need for three As?  What is the difference between bisexual and pansexual?  After all, most people simply abbreviate the acronym to LGBT, with maybe a Q, +, or * added onto the end to indicate the inclusion of the other letters.  If you are just going to abbreviate the letters, then why do we need them at all? 

I am fortunate.  As a gay trans man, my letters are always represented.  I can just say LGBT and not worry about missing a part of my identity.  However, I think including the rest of the letters, however many people want there to be, should be done.  I’m not saying that we should write out the whole thing every time, simply that we should remember to include an indicator of some sort of the other letters.  We are a community larger than just four letters, and because each letter is important to some person.  If someone tells me that they identify as not cishet and want to be included into the LGBT+ community, then I say we should let them.  I am not here to be a gate holder and I don’t think other people should be either.  The community was founded as a place of acceptance for people persecuted for being different.  How can we then go and tell someone else who is persecuted for being different that they are not allowed in this space? 

Figuring out your sexuality or gender identity is often hard.  After having straight and cis as the default, it is difficult to be anything different.  That is where the importance of labels comes in.  Labels allow people to find a community.  It lets them know that they are not alone.  For me, labels were extremely influential early in my transition.  I was able, through the label of transgender, to become connected to a whole community of people who were like me.  People who felt the same things as me.  It told me that I was not alone, that what I was feeling was normal and fine.  It gave me people who I could look to for support or help or simply to commiserate with.  Not only that, but it gave me a way to describe what I was feeling easily to other people.  Being trans is a big part of my identity as a whole, as it has defined large aspects of my life.  I would not give up that label, as it connects me to my community and helped me figure out who I really am. 

So while it may be difficult or confusing to remember what letters in the acronym mean what, I firmly believe that it is important for us as a community to make an effort to recognize groups who may be different than us, but who are nonetheless apart of the community.  Respect the labels people choose for themselves, whether that is one thing, has been changed a dozen times, or a handful of labels.  They mean something to the people and to the communities.  I think that matters more than any complaint of repetition, inconsistencies, or what they deem to be irrelevant. 

Reading Foucault and his History of Sexuality has left me thinking a lot about sexuality in Catholicism.  He draws upon Catholicism and confession a lot in his theories about repression, but I was reminded of a discrepancy that exists in depictions of sexuality between men and women in Catholicism. 

If someone brings up honor, it might conjure images of shining knights on horseback, or two men dueling, or Gerald Butler in the movie 300 fighting against a CGI army with his fellow Spartans.  Male honor is often expressed through acts of violence or physicality.  On the other hand, female honor is deeply tied to chastity.  Women have to defend their honor, their virginity, while men fight for honor.  For women, chastity is the same thing as honor.  Another part of male honor is protecting the honor of women in their lives, such as sisters, wives, and daughters.  In this way, at least a part of male honor is equal to chastity. 

But what is important about honor and chastity?  Catholicism has placed a large emphasis on chastity.  It is one of the Seven Virtues that are opposed to the Seven Deadly Sins.  By practicing the virtues, one can be protected against the temptation of the sins.  Mary, mother of Jesus, who is often presented as the ideal for women, is always described as the Virgin Mary.  Even though she is revered as the mother of Jesus, she did so while maintaining her chastity and thus her honor.  Catholicism, by raising Mary as an epitome of female virtue, thus encouraged the idea that women should maintain their virginity as the only way they can attain salvation.  However, should they be unable to maintain their chastity, confession presented itself as a way of repenting for one’s sins. 

However, that only covers the chastity of women.  How are men supposed to consider their chastity?  I mentioned earlier how part of male honor is to protect the chastity of women in their life, but that still leaves men without any honor tied directly to their own chastity.  Sure, men aren’t supposed to have sex out of wedlock, adultery is still a sin, and they are supposed to confess impure thoughts.  However, there is much less of an emphasis placed on virginity and chastity for men than there is for women.  A perfect example of this lies in saints.  For the few female saints, some part of their holiness almost always ties into how they remained a virgin, thus ensuring their purity.  One such example would be Saint Cecilia, the patroness of musicians.  A key aspect of her story is that on the night of her wedding she told her husband that she had taken a vow of virginity.  She remained chaste throughout her life while helping convert people to Christianity until she was eventually killed.  Even after death, her purity and holiness prevailed, as it is said that when her remains were opened up in 1599 AD (she died in the 3^rd Century AD), her corpse was perfectly preserved, and even smelling faintly of flowers.  While there are male saints who also were preserved by their holiness, descriptions of them rarely mention their chastity.  One example is Saint Sebastian, who converted some Romans, survived being shot full of arrows, and chastised Emperor Diocletian, who is famous for persecuting Christians during his rule.  There is no mention of his sexual status.  The best example of this discrepancy is the mother herself, Mary.  She is almost always described as the Virgin Mary.  Her virginity, just as much as being the mother of Christ, is what defines her image in the church.  It is meant to remind people of the miracle of Jesus’ birth, with Mary not having had sex, but it is telling that that is her title, whereas Joseph, who is also presumably a virgin, is never called the Virgin Joseph.   

Foucault is right in pointing out that there is an expectation of male chastity, but he is remiss in not mentioning the overwhelming expectation of female chastity. 

Hello!  I am James Hill and this is my blog for Professor Jody Valentine’s History of Sexuality, which I’m taking spring of 2020.  I am a sophomore and a classics major.  I signed up for this course because I have heard that Jody is an incredible professor.  Additionally, as a queer person, I am interested in looking at the classical world from a queer lens.  

My aims for this course overlap fairly well with the course aims.  Mainly, I hope to deepen my understanding of sexuality and its influence, or lack thereof, throughout history, especially in the classical world.  I have taken multiple courses on the classical world, but there was little emphasis placed on sexuality.  From personal readings, I have found various examples of interesting relationships to sexuality, but I am excited to encounter such relationships with a focus on sexuality, as well as a knowledge from Foucault’s theories.