Table of Contents

Introduction Part 1: Ancient Western Asia 1. Woman on top? Women's suffrage and the power of the 'oriental woman' - Silke Knippschild 2. Power, sin and seduction in Babylon - the case of Verdi's Nabucco - Michael Seymour 3. Jewel-in-the-belly-button orientalism in Oliver Stone's Alexander - Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Part 2: Greece 4. Helen, Penelope and Dido in Rossi's Odissea and Eneide - Martin Winkler 5. Dark ladies, bad girls, demon queens: female power and seduction from Greek tragedy to pop culture - Martina Treu 6. Trojan lovers and warriors - Eric Shanower 7. Film genres in cinematic adaptations of Greek tragedy - Pantelis Michelakis 8. Circe in literature and art of the Renaissance - Irene Berti 9. The erotics of power in Coca's Ifigenia - Maite Clavo 10. 'Prince of painters': the grimacing mask of power and seduction in Aristophanes' The Assemblywomen - Maddalena Giovannelli and Andrea Capra 11. Myth and tragedy in opera staging in the 21st century - Montserrat Reig and Jesus Carruesco 12. Isadora Duncan, Russian ballet and the seduction of Minoan Crete - Nicoletta Momigliano 13. Nelly and the nudes on the Athenian Acropolis in the Fascist era - Constantina Katsari 14. The lure of the hermaphrodite for the English Aesthetes - Charlotte Ribeyrol Part 3: Rome 15. The stolen seduction - Oscar Lapena 16. The great seducer - Cleopatra, queen and sex symbol - Francisco Pina Polo 17. Seduced, defeated and forever damned - Marc Antony in post-Classical imagery - Marta Garcia Morcillo 18. Caligula in pop culture - Martin Lindner 19. The reputation of Agrippina the Younger - Mary R. McHugh 20. Hadrian, Antinous and the power of seduction - Charo Rivera 21. Saint or prostitute? - the reception of empress Theodora - Filippo Carla 22. History, moral and power - the ancient world in 19th century Spanish art - Antonio Dupla Conclusion

Promotional Information

With a highly international profile, this unique volume presents the latest research in Classical Reception Studies.

About the Author

Silke Knippschild is senior lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Bristol, UK. Marta Garcia Morcillo is a lecturer in ancient history at the University of Wales, UK.

Reviews

Readers interested in the future of reception studies should bookmark the Project’s webpage and stay tuned.
*Bryn Mawr Classical Review*

An important contribution to the studies of reception of the classics in the visual and performing arts, for several reasons ... The specialists have approached their themes with great mastery of the issues and with the desire to make their contributions useful tools for further studies ... It is a well-presented and enjoyable read.
*CADMO (Bloomsbury translation)*

The contributors have made, with lucidity and perception, an original contribution to the growing scholarship on the reception of the ancient world. Everyone will find something new here.
*Classics for All Reviews*

This is an exceptionally lively and thought-provoking collection by an international team of scholars from the Imagines research project. The case studies bring evidence from an impressive range of examples into dialogue with the central themes of seduction and power, revealing in the process how power is itself a seductive force. Every reader will encounter something new. The editors’ concluding discussion explores how the individual essays combine to provide a map of the relationships between antiquity and the histories of the visual and performing arts.
*Lorna Hardwick, The Open University, UK*

Seduction challenges conventional relations of power, thus undermining tradition and leading to unexpected turns and dramas. This explains the fascination with this subject throughout the centuries. Some of the ancient seduction stories and their reception studied in this volume are familiar, others are not, but all of them are interesting. By focusing on the relation between seduction and power this volume makes an original contribution not only to reception studies but also to the diachronic study of gender and emotion.
*Angelos Chaniotis, Professor of Ancient History and Classics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA*

Silke Knippschild and Marta García Morcillo have brought together a remarkable company of leading scholars and inspiring new voices who explore how the persistent liaison between seduction and power is richly exposed in modern receptions of the myths, histories, and images emanating from the ancient world. In case studies extending from the Renaissance to the present day, in a variety of media from the performing and visual arts, the contributors to this volume reveal with compelling clarity and scholarly insight how the power of seduction continues to be wielded by ancient cultures, as their essays unpack the enduring fascination exerted by the charismatic men and alluring women of antiquity upon later artists and performers. This impressive collection represents an important contribution to the field of reception studies, since it offers an unfettered glimpse into our own fantasies and projections about the power and eroticism so often and so intimately linked with the ancient world.
*Monica S. Cyrino, Professor of Classics, University of New Mexico, USA*