1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910813674503321

Autore

Franco Cristiana

Titolo

Shameless : the canine and the feminine in the ancient Greece : with a new preface and appendix / / Cristiana Franco ; translated by Matthew Fox

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Oakland, California : , : University of California Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-520-95742-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (956 p.)

Collana

The Joan Palevsky imprint in classical literature

Disciplina

880.9/3522

Soggetti

Dogs - Mythology - Greece

Dogs in literature

Women - History - To 500

Women (Greek law)

Dogs in art

Greece Social conditions

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--Università di Siena.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface to the present edition -- Prologue -- 1. Offensive Epithets -- 2. The Dog in Greece -- 3. Food for Dogs -- 4. Sad Fates, Low Morals, and Heinous Behaviors -- 5. Return to Pandora -- Conclusion -- Appendix: Reflections on Theory and Method in Studying Animals in the Ancient World -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The figure of the dog is a paradox. As in so many cultures, past and present, the dog in ancient Greece was seen as the animal closest to humans, even as it elicited from them the most negative representations. Still a loaded term today, the word bitch not only signified shamelessness and a lack of self-control but was also exclusively figured as female. Woman and dogs in the Greek imagination were intimately intertwined, and in this careful, engaging analysis, Cristiana Franco explores the ancients' complex relationship with both. By analyzing the relationship between humans and dogs as depicted in a vast array of myths, proverbs, spontaneous metaphors,



and comic jokes, Franco in particular shows how the symbolic overlap between dog and woman provided the conceptual tools to maintain feminine subordination. Intended for general readers as well as scholars, Shameless extends the boundaries of classics and anthropology, forming a model of the sensitive work that can be done to illuminate how deeply animals are imbricated in human history. The English translation has been revised and expanded from the original Italian edition, and it includes a new methodological appendix by the author that points the way toward future work in the emerging field of human-animal studies.