rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Helen of Troy
    sub title: beauty, myth, devastation
  name:
    name part: Blondell, Ruby
    name part: 1954-
    role:
      role term: creator
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: Electronic books.
  genre: Criticism, interpretation, etc.
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: enk
    date issued: 2013
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: remote
    extent: 1 online resource : illustrations
  abstract: "The story of Helen of Troy has its origins in ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry, more than 2500 years ago, but it remains one of the world's most galvanizing myths about the destructive power of beauty. Much like the ancient Greeks, our own relationship to female beauty is deeply ambivalent, fraught with both desire and danger. We worship and fear it, advertise it everywhere yet try desperately to control and contain it. No other myth evocatively captures this ambivalence better than that of Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda, and wife of the Spartan leader Menelaus. Her elopement with (or abduction by) the Trojan prince Paris "launched a thousand ships" and started the most famous war in antiquity. For ancient Greek poets and philosophers, the Helen myth provided a means to explore the paradoxical nature of female beauty, which is at once an awe-inspiring, supremely desirable gift from the gods, essential to the perpetuation of a man's name through reproduction, yet also grants women terrifying power over men, posing a threat inseparable from its allure. Many ancients simply vilified Helen for her role in the Trojan War but there is much more to her story than that: the kidnapping of Helen by the Athenian hero Theseus, her sibling-like relationship with Achilles, the religious cult in which she was worshiped by maidens and newlyweds, and the variant tradition which claims she never went to Troy at all but was whisked away to Egypt and replaced with a phantom. In this book, author Ruby Blondell offers a fresh look at the paradoxes and ambiguities that Helen embodies. Moving from Homer and Hesiod to Sappho, Aeschylus, Euripides, and others, Helen of Troy shows how this powerful myth was continuously reshaped and revisited by the Greeks. By focusing on this key figure from ancient Greece, the book both extends our understanding of that culture and provides a fascinating perspective on our own."--Publisher
  table of contents: The problem of female beauty -- Helen, daughter of Zeus -- Disarming beauty: the Iliad -- Happily ever after?: the Odyssey -- The many faces of Helen: archaic lyric -- Behind the scenes: the Oresteia -- Spartan woman and Spartan goddess: Herodotus -- Playing defense: Gorgias' encomium of Helen -- Enter Helen: Euripides' Trojan women -- Two-faced Helen: the Helen of Euripides -- Helen MacGuffin: Isocrates.
  note: Ruby Blondell.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  note: English.
  subject:
    name:
      name part: of Troy, Queen of Sparta
      name part: Helen
    topic: In literature
  subject:
    name:
      name part: of Troy, Queen of Sparta
      name part: Helen
  subject:
    topic: Greek literature
    topic: History and criticism
  subject:
    topic: Latin literature
    topic: History and criticism
  subject:
    topic: Littérature grecque
    topic: Histoire et critique
  subject:
    topic: Littérature latine
    topic: Histoire et critique
  subject:
    topic: Greek literature
  subject:
    topic: Latin literature
  subject:
    topic: Literature
  subject:
    topic: Languages & Literatures
  subject:
    topic: Greek & Latin Languages & Literatures
  classification: PA3015.R5 H3725 2013eb
  classification: 880.9/351
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Helen of Troy
    name:
      name part: Blondell, Ruby, 1954-
    identifier: (DLC) 2012036954
  related item:
    identifier: (DLC) 2012036954
  identifier: 9780199344956
  identifier: 0199344957
  identifier: 9780199731602
  identifier: 0199731608
  identifier: 2012036954
  identifier: http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login
  record info:
    record content source: YDXCP
    record creation date: 130509
    record change date: 20260318191920.9
    record identifier: in00005709494
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng