Bibliography Barrett, W. S. 1964. Euripides’ Hippolytos. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Betts, J. H. 1977. Review of Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel, Journal of Hellenic Studies 97:228-229. Black, Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. […]
Conclusion Many of the concerns associated with illegitimacy cut across the narratives we have examined. The connection between legitimacy and reining in female desire is present not only in Euripides’ portrayal of Phaedra but also in the narratives about Danaë. [1] Both narratives in turn imply an ideology of marriage as a […]
Chapter 4. Euripides’ Hippolytos Many of the metaphors of illegitimacy we have already seen, along with the social forces and structures that inform them, come together in Euripides’ Hippolytos, a drama that confronts in turn a woman’s sexual desire and a young man’s transition to adulthood. But Hippolytos is not any young […]
Chapter 3. Images of Fertility and Sterility Teucer’s emerging role in Euripides’ Helen (examined in the last chapter) as the founder of New Salamis on Cyprus is an example of the way in which narratives can provide a legitimization process within themselves. Teucer, rejected by his father, leaves behind a place and […]
Chapter 2. Teucer, the Bastard Archer Teucer is well known as a nothos in classical Greek literature, and he appears in a number of narratives, including the Iliad, Sophocles’ Ajax, and Euripides’ Helen. As a result of his frequent appearance in the ancient sources, there are multiple metaphorical associations connected to Teucer […]
Chapter 1. Where the Girls Are: Parthenioi and Skotioi Marriage and legitimacy are inseparably linked in ancient Greek thought. Not only is the legitimacy of children determined by the marital status of their parents, but marriage is defined in terms of legitimate children. [1] The often quoted line from Menander’s Perikeiromene Ταύτην […]
Introduction. Metaphors of Illegitimacy On a billboard advertisement for a DNA paternity testing service, the selling line is “because you want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt.” [1] Doubt over the child’s parentage casts a metaphorical shadow, one that may be imagined to cover the child himself or herself. The […]
Acknowledgments For my parents, for all they made possible, and for Mark, for living through it with me. This book began as a doctoral dissertation for the Ph.D. in Classical Philology at Harvard University. I most gratefully acknowledge the help and encouragement of my readers for that dissertation: Gloria […]
Foreword Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series concerns not just the archaic and classical periods of Greek traditions but the whole continuum—along with all the discontinuities—from the second millennium B.C.E. to the present. The aim is to enhance perspectives by applying […]
Introduction. Metaphors of Illegitimacy On a billboard advertisement for a DNA paternity testing service, the selling line is “because you want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt.” [1] Doubt over the child’s parentage casts a metaphorical shadow, one that may be imagined to cover the child himself or herself. The […]