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Greek Homosexuality Hardcover – January 1, 1989

by K. J. Dover (Author)

4.4 61 ratings

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The ancient Greeks have for centuries been regarded as Western Culture's cultural and intellectual ancestors. But throughout generations of education in ancient Greek philosophy, drama, poetry, politics, and art, a crucial aspect of the ancient Greek world has come to be overlooked, avoided, distorted, or denied--the role of the homosexual relationship. K.J. Dover's scholarly, thorough, and fair study is a landmark in the opening of the issue to the public.

Print length

246 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Fine Communications
Publication date

January 1, 1989
Dimensions

6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

1567312217
ISBN-13

978-1567312218
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fine Communications; First Edition (January 1, 1989)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 246 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1567312217
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1567312218
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.35 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,907,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,938 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies

Customer Reviews:
4.4 61 ratings

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Kenneth James Dover
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Stephen Halliwell
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Stephen Halliwell is Wardlaw Professor Emeritus of Greek at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, has taught in the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge, and Birmingham, and has held visiting professorships in Belgium, Canada, Italy, and the USA. His extensive interests in Greek literature, philosophy, and culture stretch all the way from Homer to the literature (both pagan and Christian) of the Roman empire. His publications include two prize-winning books: Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity (Criticos Prize 2008), and The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Premio Europeo d'Estetica, 2008). Among his other books are a monograph on Aristotle's Poetics (1986, 1998), the Loeb Library translation of Aristotle's Poetics (1995), commentaries on books 5 and 10 of Plato's Republic (1988, 1993), Between Ecstasy and Truth: Interpretations of Greek Poetics from Homer to Longinus (2011), a large-scale commentary on the ancient treatise On the Sublime (published first in Italian translation, in the Lorenzo Valla series, in 2021, and in English by Oxford University Press in 2022), and verse translations of the complete plays of Aristophanes for the Oxford World's Classics series (Birds and Other Plays, 1997; Frogs and Other Plays, 2016; Acharnians, Knights, Wasps and Peace, 2022, to appear in World's Classics in 2023). He has given over 200 invited research lectures in twenty countries.
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K. J. Dover
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

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J. C. Woods

The social uses of homosexual pursuit

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2000

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What I found particularly informative was Dover's fascinating theory on the social use of Homosexual pursuit among the citizen class. Particularly the information that hubris was a crime in democratic Athens. What has this to do with homosexuality, you ask? the first half of the book explains. Ancient greek homosexuality in no way resembles the modern version and it is mind-blowing to see how they differ and how analogous structures, in two different societies, may seem to be opposites. For instance, in speaking of homosexual pursuit Dover is constantly forced, when comparing Ancient Athenian society to modern, to use heterosexual pursuit as an analogy for homosexual pursuit. The resemblances between modern heterosexuality and ancient homosexuality are just that strong!

20 people found this helpful

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Theresa Gadiare

amazing visuals with full explanations

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2018

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Bought this for a graduate research paper; amazing visuals with full explanations.

3 people found this helpful

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Jane

Very Detailed.

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2011

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Two things hindered my reading of this book. First Dover's over parsing of words in one sentence using just about every punctuation mark. It was distracting and I would have much preferred if he had just put the words down and gave us the derivatives during translation and how it affected to-days ideas.

Secondly - I could not follow his numbering on the vases! Don't get me wrong, this is not the first book I've read dealing with ancient vase painting....but his reference numbers were indecipherable.

But I like that there were lots of vases and lots of good descriptions and references to stories and events.

Dover was very precise in his discussion of homosexual behaviour and the rites of different localities. He was also very detailed in how the homosexual or pederastic relationship came about, expanded and gave many references to rules and regulations. He cited many examples using the vases. It helped me get a more indepth idea of the entire relationship.

Also included were relationships between women and women and women and men.

I felt this book was more a reference book for scholars studying vases and homosexual behaviour in antiquity than a book for the lay person.

17 people found this helpful

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Mr. Thomas A. Firey

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2015

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Excellent scholarship, well written.

One person found this helpful

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Poetry Reader

out of the academic closet

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2010

At last, a wonderfully honest, open, open-hearted, and sound scholarly treatment of Greek homosexuality, a text that is likely to rewrite much of the scholarship that has shied away from this subject in the past. Congratulations!

4 people found this helpful

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G. Gaither

technical and boring.

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2016

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Didn't even get started. Very much a text book, technical and boring. Update: Years later, I tried it again and still couldn’t get into it.

2 people found this helpful

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A. Maturin

This is the definitive study of the subject?

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2012

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A blurb from the Washington Post on the dust jacket says, "In this expert, candid and wry study all is made clear--who, what, where, why and how." Not so. Not even close. We know that man-boy love was practiced extensively in ancient Greece and that it sometimes involved sexual gratification. We know that Greeks -- at least those of the upper classes -- approved of man-boy romance. We don't know, however, what the general attitude was toward man-boy sex and how frequently it was a part of erotic relationships between men and boys. I am a scholar of ancient philosophy. I came to this book believing that sexual interaction between a man and his beloved was accepted by some, frowned upon by most but generally not taken too seriously. Plato's hard line against it was conservative, not radical, not an "ideal philosophical construction," as Dover would have it. Nothing in Dover's book convinces me that this view is wrong. Indeed, Aischines' speech against Timarchos, to which Dover devotes much space, tends to confirm it. The most natural inference from Aischines' speech is that neither he nor his audience saw anything wrong with being a "lover," but that they did disapprove of using one's beloved for sexual gratification. On p. 54 Dover admits that the physical relationship between lover and beloved is a "matter of conjecture," but elsewhere he seems to take it for granted. The title of his book is _Greek Homosexuality_, but a main question is to what extent Greek pederasty resembled the homosexual relationships with which we are familiar. I don't fault Dover for not answering that question decisively. I do fault him for not asking it.

31 people found this helpful

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Melinda Bhardwaj-Pathak

Very good, interesting, but difficult read

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2021

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I love the book's topic and the content, but the language, reading, and sentence structure were tough to comprehend.

Still, I think the message of this book speaks volumes concerning the irrationality and injustice of the taboos of the modern age.

One person found this helpful

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