Helen of Troy: From Homer to Hollywood is a comprehensive literary biography of Helen of Troy, which explores the ways in which her story has been told and retold in almost every century from the ancient world to the modern day.
- Takes readers on an epic voyage into the literary representations of a woman who has wielded a great influence on Western cultural consciousness for more than three millennia
- Features a wide and diverse variety of literary sources, including epic, drama, novels, poems, film, comedy, and opera, and works by Homer, Euripides, Chaucer, Shakespeare
- Includes an analysis of a radio play by the prize-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and a Faust play by a contemporary Scottish playwright
- Explores themes such as narrative difficulties in portraying Helen, how legal history relates to her story, and how writers apportion blame or exculpate her
- Considers the aesthetic and narrative difficulties that ensue when literature translates myth
Helen of Troy: From Homer to Hollywood is a comprehensive examination of the ways in which Helen's story has been told and re-told from the ancient world to the present day. In this wide-ranging literary biography, Laurie Maguire analyzes ongoing debates about Helen's sexual culpability, as seen through the prism of society's evolving attitudes to issues such as beauty and rape. The aesthetic and narrative difficulties that ensue when literature translates myth are also considered, yet through it all, we see how Helen of Troy's contradictory legacy has transcended the ages and endured in literature. Works by Homer, Euripides, Chaucer, Shakespeare and others are explored, as well as Helen's resurgent popularity in a surprising variety of modern novels, plays, and films.
In an engaging and original new work filled with scholarly insights, Helen of Troy: From Homer to Hollywood takes readers on an epic voyage into the literary representations of a woman who has wielded a great influence on Western cultural consciousness for more than three millennia.
