Tea at Trianon: Observations of Womanhood in the Homeric Epics

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, March 26, 2021

Observations of Womanhood in the Homeric Epics

From Inquiries:

In summary, the Homeric epics The Iliad and The Odyssey utilized the motifs of storytelling and the loom to demonstrate the ideal and unideal poles on the Ancient Greek spectrum of femininity. In the same way women of the era were defined by the men surrounding them, ideal and unideal femininity were defined by their relationships to male dominance. Helen’s storytelling and weaving exhibited her desire to gain agency and reject the narrative forced upon her, therefore disrupting male dominance; meanwhile, Penelope’s storytelling and weaving exemplified her loyalty to her husband, supporting male dominance. However, Helen and Penelope were not foils of one another, nor did they themselves represent the poles of femininity -- merely their actions did. While “wise” and “prudent”23 Penelope embodied ideal femininity almost exclusively, “lovely haired”24 yet “accursed”25 Helen exhibited aspects of both ideal and unideal femininity. The construction of each character signifies the complexity the Homeric poets desired each one to have, despite their statuses in the Ancient Greek world as inferior to men. Although female characters rarely received the spotlight in either epic, the subtle ways in which the poets revealed their contributions to the plotlines signified that there would simply be no epics without the actions of women. (Read more.)