Foucault's Virginity Ancient Erotic Fiction and the History of Sexuality (The Stanford Memorial Lectures)-[Simon Goldhill].pdf

The sexy, witty and often bizarre novels, poetry and dialogues of
the first centuries of this era (works such as Longus' Daphnis and
Chloe, Achilles Tatius* Leucippe and Cleitophon and Plutarch's
Amatorius) were posed at the same time as fundamental
ideas about the body, gender and sexuality were being set in place
with the rise of Christianity and the Church to dominate the pagan
world. Modern writers on the history of sexuality have largely
ignored this literature in favour of prose treatises, philosophy and
Christian homilies. Simon Goldhill, writing with the same wit and
verve as the ancient writers he engages with, sets out to put these
texts back into the history of sexuality. The result is a dazzling
celebration of sex and sexuality in the Greek literature of the first
centuries CE.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars in many
fields: it is a lively and readable contribution to literary criticism,
classical studies and the history of the novel; to the discourse of
sexuality and gender studies; and to early Christian studies and
theology. All Greek is translated.
THE W. B. STANFORD MEMORIAL LECTURES
FOUCAULT'S VIRGINITY
THE W. B. STANFORD
MEMORIAL LECTURES
This lecture series was established by public subscrip-
tion, to honour the memory of William Bedell Stanford,
Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin,
from 1940 to 1980, and Chancellor of the University of
Dublin from 1982 to 1984.
FOUCAULT'S
VIRGINITY
Ancient erotic fiction and
the history of sexuality
SIMON GOLDHILL
Lecturer in Classics in the University of Cambridge,
and Fellow of King's College
I CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1995
First published 1995
Reprinted 1995
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