CLA232H1 Lecture : Lysistrata Lecture Notes
Document Summary
Medical writers talked about uselessness of women"s pleasure except in reproduction sex for fun = useless and wasteful. Sophocles" play women of trachis : herakles" wife deianira gives him a love potion which turns out to be poison. Lysistrata shows women as sex-obsessed and reinforces stereotype of women"s desire as destructive. Have to return to sappho to see how women felt about their own sexuality. Sappho 31: love t riangle, love is painful and like death for the woman, while she admires the man"s coolness. Sappho 96: consoles atthis for absence of lover arignota, lover as a mental image. Overall message that love is dangerous and devastating, but not for the objects. Sappho 2: lots of erotic nature, flower imagery; female sex shown as natural and beautiful. Although her poems are homosexual and written for women, they"re set against a backdrop of marriage and heterosexual relationships.
