The Virgin’s Promise: Euripides’ Helen and the Tragedies of Women | Faculty Lecture Series 2024

2024 Faculty Lecture Series
Sarah Olsen, Associate Professor of Classics
The Virgin’s Promise: Euripides’ Helen and the Tragedies of Women
February 29, 2024

Since the 5th century BCE, the Greek playwright Euripides has been famous (or infamous) for his representations of bold and transgressive women. His Helen (412 BCE), however, rehabilitates the notorious mythical heroine by dramatizing the possibility that she never actually went to Troy, but was instead reunited with Menelaus in Egypt during his journey home. In my lecture, I will argue that even as this play scripts the restoration of normative womanhood for its protagonist, it provides a model of alternative femininity through its characterization of a minor character: the virgin seer Theonoe. Drawing from queer and feminist frameworks for the interpretation of literature and drama, I will explore how Theonoe emerges as a potent counterpoint to Helen herself, carving out an unusual – if also precarious – position for herself beyond the structural and temporal confines of marriage.

Sarah Olsen is a scholar of ancient Greek literature, art, and culture. She is the author of Solo Dance in Archaic and Classical Greece: Representing the Unruly Body (2021) and co-editor of Queer Euripides (2022) and Imprints of Dance in Ancient Greece and Rome/Improntas de danza antigua (2024). Her current research projects include an ongoing collaborative investigation of ancient dance, a co-authored commentary on Euripides’ Orestes, and a study of female intimacy in ancient Greek tragedy.

The Faculty Lecture Series is organized by the faculty members of the Lecture Committee. The aim of the series is to present big ideas beyond disciplinary boundaries. The lectures are free and open to the public.

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