The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome

by Jane McIntosh Snyder

Book Overview

"Faint though the voices of the women of Greek and Roman antiquity may be in some cases, their sound, if we listen carefully enough, can fill many of the gaps and silences of women's past."--from the Conclusion

Beginning with Sappho in the seventh century B.C.and ending with Hypatia and Egeria in the fifth century A.D., Jane McIntosh Snyder listens carefully to the major women writers of classical Greece and Rome, piecing together...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809317060
• ISBN13: 9780809317066
• Release Date: February 1991
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 199 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent step toward women's history in the world

When anyone talks about women in ancient Greece or Rome I always have one question: how do you know that when women left behind so few records? Snyder addresses this question by relying heavily on surviving poems by women and there aren't many of them. While it is difficult to just let women speak for themselves, I think that this record of surviving works is useful just for that reason -- Snyder's interpretations have been argued about but the fact remains that little survives. I especially like that an attempt at contextualizing the poetry is made and this is not easy to do when little "factual" evidence about the poets themselves exists that is untainted by bias throughout history.