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Pandora's jar : women in Greek myths / by Haynes, Natalie,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories. Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. 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. And when they do, those women are often painted as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil. But Pandora--the first woman, who according to legend unloosed chaos upon the world--was not a villain, and even Medea and Phaedra have more nuanced stories than generations of retellings might indicate. Now, in Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, Natalie Haynes--broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist--redresses this imbalance. Taking Pandora and her jar (the box came later) as the starting point, she puts the women of the Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk. After millennia of stories telling of gods and men, be they Zeus or Agamemnon, Paris or Odysseus, Oedipus or Jason, the voices that sing from these pages are those of Hera, Athena and Artemis, and of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Eurydice and Penelope."--
Subjects: Artemis (Greek deity); Athena (Greek deity); Clytemnestra, Queen of Mycenae.; Eurydice (Greek mythological character); Hera (Greek deity); Penelope (Greek mythological character); Jocasta (Greek mythology); Mythology, Greek.; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Her lotus year : China, the roaring twenties, and the making of Wallis Simpson / by French, Paul,1966-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Author Paul French examines a controversial and revealing period in the early life of the legendary Wallis, Duchess of Windsor -- her one year in China. Before she was the Duchess of Windsor, Bessie Wallis Warfield was Mrs. Wallis Spencer, wife of Earl "Win" Spencer, a US Navy aviator. From humble beginnings in Baltimore, she rose to marry a man who gave up his throne for her. But what made Wallis Spencer, Navy Wife, the woman who could become the Duchess of Windsor? The answers lie in her one-year sojourn in China. In her memoirs, Wallis described her time in China as her "Lotus Year," referring to Homer's Lotus Eaters, a group living in a state of dreamy forgetfulness, never to return home. Though faced with challenges, Wallis came to appreciate traditional Chinese aesthetics. China molded her in terms of her style and provided her with friendships that lasted a lifetime. But that "Lotus Year" would also later be used to damn her in the eyes of the British Establishment. The British government's supposed "China Dossier" of Wallis's rumored amorous and immoral activities in the Far East was a damning concoction, portraying her as sordid, debauched, influenced by foreign agents, and unfit to marry a king. Instead, French, an award-winning China historian, reveals Wallis Warfield Spencer as a woman of tremendous courage who may have acted as a courier for the US government, undertaking dangerous undercover diplomatic missions in a China torn by civil war. Her Lotus Year is an untold story in the colorful life of a woman too often maligned by history"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Windsor, Wallis Warfield, Duchess of, 1896-1986; Americans; Military spouses;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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