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Shameless

Online ISBN:
9780520957428
Print ISBN:
9780520273405
Publisher:
University of California Press
Book

Shameless

Cristiana Franco
Cristiana Franco
University for Foreigners in Siena, Italy
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Published:
17 September 2014
Online ISBN:
9780520957428
Print ISBN:
9780520273405
Publisher:
University of California Press

Abstract

The figure of the dog is a paradox. As in so many cultures, past and present, the dog in ancient Greece was seen as the animal closest to humans, even as it elicited from them the most negative representations. Still a loaded term today, the word bitch not only signified shamelessness and a lack of self-control, but was also exclusively figured as female. Women and dogs in the Greek imagination were intimately intertwined, and this analysis explores the ancients' complex relationship with both. By analyzing the relationship between humans and dogs as depicted in a vast array of myths, proverbs, spontaneous metaphors, and comic jokes, this book in particular shows how the symbolic overlap between dog and woman provided the conceptual tools to maintain feminine subordination. This book extends the boundaries of classics and anthropology, forming a model of the sensitive work that can be done to illuminate how deeply animals are imbricated in human history.

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