Pandora's Jar
Trade paperback edition in good condition. Some wear to cover. Fine reading copy.
“And if history has taught us anything, it is that women making a noise—whether speaking or shouting—tend to be viewed as intrinsically disruptive.”
The Greek myths are one of the most important cultural foundation-stones of the modern world.
Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Virgil to Aeschylus to Sophocles and Euripides. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays, and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories.
Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes—broadcaster, writer, and passionate classicist—redresses this imbalance. Taking Greek creation myths as her starting point and then retelling the four great mythic sagas: the Trojan War, the Royal House of Thebes, Jason and the Argonauts, and Heracles. She puts the female characters on an equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds—and misdeeds—if Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, and Circe. And away from the goddesses of Mount Olympus are Helen, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Antigone, and Medea who sing from these pages, not Paris, Agamemnon, Orestes, or Jason.
Trade paperback edition in good condition. Some wear to cover. Fine reading copy.
“And if history has taught us anything, it is that women making a noise—whether speaking or shouting—tend to be viewed as intrinsically disruptive.”
The Greek myths are one of the most important cultural foundation-stones of the modern world.
Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Virgil to Aeschylus to Sophocles and Euripides. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays, and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories.
Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes—broadcaster, writer, and passionate classicist—redresses this imbalance. Taking Greek creation myths as her starting point and then retelling the four great mythic sagas: the Trojan War, the Royal House of Thebes, Jason and the Argonauts, and Heracles. She puts the female characters on an equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds—and misdeeds—if Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, and Circe. And away from the goddesses of Mount Olympus are Helen, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Antigone, and Medea who sing from these pages, not Paris, Agamemnon, Orestes, or Jason.
Trade paperback edition in good condition. Some wear to cover. Fine reading copy.
“And if history has taught us anything, it is that women making a noise—whether speaking or shouting—tend to be viewed as intrinsically disruptive.”
The Greek myths are one of the most important cultural foundation-stones of the modern world.
Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Virgil to Aeschylus to Sophocles and Euripides. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays, and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories.
Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes—broadcaster, writer, and passionate classicist—redresses this imbalance. Taking Greek creation myths as her starting point and then retelling the four great mythic sagas: the Trojan War, the Royal House of Thebes, Jason and the Argonauts, and Heracles. She puts the female characters on an equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds—and misdeeds—if Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, and Circe. And away from the goddesses of Mount Olympus are Helen, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Antigone, and Medea who sing from these pages, not Paris, Agamemnon, Orestes, or Jason.
ISBN 978-0-06-313946-6
Natalie Haynes
2020