A Problem in Greek Ethics - Couverture souple

Symonds, John Addington

 
9781530184491: A Problem in Greek Ethics

Biographie de l'auteur

John Addington Symonds (5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. Although he married and had a family, he was an early advocate of homosexuality, which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships. He referred to it as l'amour de l'impossible (love of the impossible). A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies about writers and artists. He also wrote much poetry inspired by his homosexual affairs. Apart from his own works, he also translated classical poetry on homoerotic themes, and wrote poems drawing on ancient Greek imagery and language such as Eudiades, which has been called "the most famous of his homoerotic poems". While the taboos of Victorian England prevented Symonds from speaking openly about homosexuality, his works published for a general audience contained strong implications and some of the first direct references to male-male sexual love in English literature. He died in Rome and was buried close to the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Présentation de l'éditeur

This book is a ground-breaking study of the Greek institution of paiderastia. This was a custom by which adolescent men made alliances with older men of a romantic and sexual nature. The young men in question were the same age as contemporary teen pop stars (aproximately from puberty to the Athenian age of majority, 21). And they were treated similarly, as celebrities, showered with gifts and attention, and fought over by lovers. Philosophers such as Plato considered these same-sex unions as a remedy for tyranny. Chapters include: Treatment of Homer by the later Greeks; The Romance of Achilles and Patroclus; The heroic ideal of masculine love; Vulgar paiderastia--How introduced into Hellas--Crete--Laius--The myth of Ganymede; Myths of paiderastia; Semi-legendary tales of love--Harmodius and Aristogeiton; Greek liberty and Greek love extinguished; Platonic doctrine on Greek love; and more.

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