Sexual Culture in Ancient Greece

Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000. Cloth, x, 358 pages, illustrations; 24 cm. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture, Volume 24. Tight, clean copy. Dust jacket, with surface rubbing, protected in a mylar cover. "Erotic sensibility pervaded the art, literature, and social mores of the ancient Greeks. Early religious figurines emphasize sexual features, and written documents confirm that the people worshiped deities with strong sexual characteristics. Out of this background came a distinctively Greek sexual culture--guilt-free, graphically frank, and uninhibited by taboos that became entrenched in the Middle Ages. Illustrated with art from the earliest agricultural periods as well as from the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman eras, SEXUAL CULTURE OF ANCIENT GREECE presents nine successive stages of Greek sexual culture. Daniel H. Garrison uses well-known passages from Biblical, Near Eastern, and Greek literature to show the centrality of sexual culture in the civilizations of the area, particularly as they reflect the traditions passed on to the Western world. The only comprehensive overview of Greek sexual culture, this book is a valuable guide to the origins of our complex attitudes regarding marriage, the rights of women, homosexuality, and the role of eroticism in art, religion, ethics, and literature." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Sexual religion: the roots of sexual culture; Coming of age in the ancient Near East: two sexual myths of cultural initiation; Hellenizing Greece: the revision of Bronze Age mythology Greek patriarchy: the severe style; Education of the senses from Solon to Pericles; Idealizing love: Plato, sex, and philosophy; Sexual beauty: the nude in Greek art; Erotic friendship: romantic fictions; Anerotic religion: Greek themes in Early Christianity. . 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. 8vo. Collectible.