Gaya Scienza

The Greeks and Greek Love: The Hidden Polemics

 

While James Davidson's The Greeks and Greek Love recently won a Lambda Literary Award, the polemics surrounding his book do not seem to abate, although very little was mentioned in the lay press reviews.

A fellow blogger writes:

I have been reading with great interest both your account of Davidson's The Greeks and Greek Love and your comments on Glenn Bowersock's review, in the hope that he would defend his stance with scholarly arguments and tighter logic. Such a hope has been proved vain, so I ventured to comment on his work in my blog. Some of my points elaborate strictures made by T. K. Hubbard in his electronic review, but I trust that my piece and his longer one will not be felt to be unnecessarily redundant : http://eruditionis-causa.blogspot.com/2010/05/james-davidsons-sextravagance.html.

I must say that J. F. Nardelli's post and T. K. Hubbard's electronic review are both intellectually challenging, and leave you wandering...

2010.06.06

Greek Love: Unfair Criticism

G.W. Bowersock is not kind. The New York Review of Books has published recently his very negative review of The Greeks and Greek Love - A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World (James Davidson, Random House, 2009, 789p). After praising Kenneth Dover's Greek Homosexuality (1978) he links Davidson's book to "the longer books that have been published on Greek homosexuality in the thirty years after Dover", none of which "comes close to his lucid, concise, and scholarly exposition."

But Bowersock's criticism goes too far. Davidson's emphasis on a "broader picture of affective relationships", instead of "what he considers an excessive emphasis on sexual penetration" is not an attempt to "diminish Dover's work" or to "undermine Dover's immense authority." At least that's not how I remember it. Bowersock also seems to imply that The Greeks and Greek Love is a "timely" apology of "pederasty under the guise of Greek love (...) at a moment when Western nations have been profoundly shaken by revelations of child abuse." This is unfair and inaccurate. I must say I have a much nicer recollection of Davidson's book which I mentioned last year in this blog.

At Galignani, the best (and oldest?) English bookstore in Paris, I came upon The Paris Letters of Thomas Eakins, edited by William Innes Homer (Princeton University Press, 2009, 392p), hot from the press, which seems to be worth reading.

2009.09.20

Caillebotte?

Another week, another state. Vermont became the fourth state in America to allow same-sex marriage. For the first time through a legislative process. On Tuesday, somewhat unexpectedly, Vermont Congress overrode the Governor's veto of a bill that grants couples of the same sex the right to marry.

Giulia Sissa, whose book I mentioned last week (Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World), is, together with James Davidson (The Greeks & Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece), and whatever her merits, one of the scholars to object to the traditional vision of Greek Love as dominated by the "mechanics of erect sex as excluding a wide range of erotic emotions," as popularized by Foucault and Dover. In "contrast to Davidson, however, Sissa sees femininity as the stimulant source for all these longings and relations," adds Peter Green in his interesting review in the March 4th issue of The New Republic.

These days I was going through several piles of papers I had accumulated over the past few months, trying to tidy up my apartment before the arrival of my daughters for Easter, when I discovered an article by Blake Bailey in The New York Times reviewing the biography of Hopkins by Paul Mariani (Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life, New York, Viking, 2008, 496p). Bailey is the author of a recent biography of Cheever. I had decided not to read Mariani's book, despite my interest in Hopkins, after reading a negative review in the NYRB. Bailey makes the same criticism that had put me off: "I guess it's not imperative for biographers to dwell on their subjects' sexual inclinations, though most would agree it's kind of crucial in Hopkins's case, and Mariani is almost coy on that point."

After seeing the exhibition Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea, the first major showing of the artist’s oeuvre in New York in over thirty years, at the Brooklyn Museum (through July 5), I want to know more about the man...

2009.04.12

Greek Love

All newspapers have abundantly paid their respects to Yves Saint Laurent after his death last week. In the plane, on my way back to the US last Tuesday, I read in the French daily Libération an interview with Pierre Bergé, "his longtime companion and the co-founder of YSL Couture House". How did you close your deal with Yves Saint Laurent? asks the journalist: "We fall in love. As simple as that."  In the International Herald Tribune, Suzy Menkes, the fashion critic, writes about "the Bergé/Saint Laurent partnership, openly, but never vulgarly homosexual"... Saturday the New York Times (owner of the IHT) printed a photo of Pierre Bergé, escorted by Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy, at the funerals of Yves Saint Laurent. His face bears the traces of grief... The caption identifies him as Yves Saint Laurent's business partner! I would like my business partner to regret me as much...

Hillary Clinton gave her much anticipated speech endorsing Barack Obama in Washington DC this Saturday. I must say I was surprised to hear her mention twice the word 'gay' in her 30' speech, along other minority groups... It was the first time in a campaign where gay themes were not really an issue. But now that she has exited the race she does not need to be as cautious...

In the last issue of The New York Review of Books Edmund White writes about Marguerite Duras. Nothing to make a fuss over. In the contributors list, though, I learned that White will publish a book about Rimbaud this fall: The Double Life of a Rebel. That's certainly more interesting...

***

For several weeks now I have been digging into the thick volume of James Davidson's The Greeks & Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, 656pp).

It is surprising the book went almost unnoticed, at least in the US! (The UK papers, including the TLS, ran reviews) As the title rightly points out, it's a radical reappraisal of Greek homosexuality. It revisits the way scholars have been interpreting the topic for the past century, the so-called modern scholarship of Greek Homosexuality, culminating with Sir Kenneth Dover's Greek Homosexuality (1978), which was praised by Michel Foucault as an instant classic. Sodomy was put at the center of Greek homosexuality... What mattered was the opposition between activity and passivity. It was all about "initiation through insemination" and "domination through penetration." Davidson prefers to talk about "Greek Love" and challenges all previous assumptions. He puts back Greek homosexuality in its context, with its complexity and diversity, and is often very convincing in his analyses.

James Davidson is an historian of ancient Greece at Warwick University in the UK. His book is the result of an intellectual journey started almost thirty years ago. It reads like a detective story despite its number of pages, draws on ancient texts and scenes painted on antique cups (sometimes very graphically explicit), analyzes all relevant myths and stories (Ganymedes, Hyacinthus, Achilles and Patroclus, etc.), seeks analogies from anthropologists studies, and depicts the development of modern ideas on Greek homosexuality where Dover, Veyne and Foucault play a significant role.

Davidson's style is brisk, lively, with shortcuts and sometimes playful anachronisms, only someone with deep knowledge and understanding can display... The Greeks and Greek Love is a hallmark in the debates about Greek homosexuality. It needs to be sipped slowly like an aged red Burgundy.

2008.06.08