In the ages before people fought their academic battles in mailing lists and then blogs, the pages of academic journals often recorded back-and-forth rivalries over such details as the accuracy of translations and interpretations, proper credit for prior publication, and accusations of misunderstanding. This article is one of those: largely a record of detailed pedantic rivalry over whether a prior rebuttal to a previous article had correctly understood the original author’s position.
Greece
Covering the region equivalent to modern Greece in south-eastern Europe, but also the larger scope of Greek-speaking cultures, especially in the Classical period.
LHMP entry
This article is not particularly relevant, as it presents an overview of the structure of sexual relations from an elite male point of view. There is discussion of the social construction of sexual systems, with some odd anecdotal parallels from more modern cultures. There is a brief discussion of how to understand Sappho’s biography and work within this context (including a perhaps unwarranted assumption that social structures in Lesbos were identical to those in Athens).
This is not a book about history. The author’s area of focus is religious studies and psychology and the book primarily concerns itself with interpreting Greek and Roman mythological references to same-sex relations through a Freudian and Jungian lens. (Indeed, half the book is a discussion of Freud’s and Jung’s writings on same-sex relations and the development of their theories.) The conclusions are entirely concerned with modern Freudian understandings of Greek myth and how those might inform the experiences of modern people.
Bremmer presents some anecdotal, cross-cultural evidence for classical Greek pederasty having structural similarities to some generational-initiation ceremonies or systems in “primitive” cultures, positing that it is, perhaps, a relic of a more widespread Indo-European practice. The body of the article is focused exclusively on male relations, however a very brief appendix reviews three brief references to a possible female parallel in Sparta that could expand understanding of the context of Sappho’s love poetry. The references are:
This is one of those delightful linguistic deep-dives so beloved of classical philologists. Nelson considers the use of classical Greek ὄλισβος (olisbos) as meaning “dildo” within the context of its other meanings and of other words for dildo and concludes that not only was “dildo” not the primary meaning for the word, but that it also wasn’t the standard/default term for such an instrument.
This is a very brief philological note about the appearance and context of the Greek word “lesbiai” (lesbians) after the classical period. It begins by noting usage of the verbs “lesbizo” and “lesbiazo” that refer to fellatio, not to same-sex relations. He also notes Lucian’s reference connecting women from Lesbos with same-sex relations (in the Dialogues of the Courtesans). He discounts a claim (which I reviewed at one point and discarded as irrelevant) that there is a reference to “lesbizo” referring to tribadism in the 15th century.
Cameron acknowledges that Brooten found more evidence for love between women in Greco-Roman antiquity than scholars had previously supposed was available. However, he then lays out his agenda that her arguments depend on four Greek texts, each of which he will challenge the interpretation of. In two cases, Cameron’s objection is that the verb “gamein,” when applied to two women, does not refer to marriage at all, not even metaphorically.
Satan’s Harvest Home is an anonymous polemic (published 1749) railing against the perceived rise of effeminacy, sodomy, and prostitution in English society.
William Walsh was a late 17th century English poet and critic. The work of his that piques our interest is a philosophical treatise A Dialogue Concerning Women, being a Defence of the Sex, which is dedicated to someone identified as Eugenia. The work is in the form of a debate between Misogynes (the misogynist) and Philogynes (the lover of women), with authorial asides commenting on their arguments and directly addressing the dedicatee.
The classical corpus of “pastoral lament” is small (two Greek, two Latin) and the genre doesn’t really come into being until the later 15th century, at which point the genre has shifted from its classical origins. This “lament for a lost companion” in its 15th century form primarily mourns female figures, and early works lack a clear relationship of the poetic voice and its subject. The poems are not clearly personal reactions.
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