The study of women in antiquity is a well-established area of research in the classics. In The Erotics of Domination, Ellen Greene re-examines long-held scholarly attitudes concerning the representation of male sexual desire and female subjection in the Latin love poetry of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid. Examining first-person poetic personae that have often been romanticized by critics, Greene finds that male sexuality is consistently threatened as moral resolve and social status are undermined by desires that render men passively "womanish": powerless and emotional.
Language
English
Pages
142
Format
Hardcover
Release
December 30, 1998
ISBN 13
9780801859816
The Erotics of Domination: Male Desire and the Mistress in Latin Love Poetry
The study of women in antiquity is a well-established area of research in the classics. In The Erotics of Domination, Ellen Greene re-examines long-held scholarly attitudes concerning the representation of male sexual desire and female subjection in the Latin love poetry of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid. Examining first-person poetic personae that have often been romanticized by critics, Greene finds that male sexuality is consistently threatened as moral resolve and social status are undermined by desires that render men passively "womanish": powerless and emotional.