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Appearances notwithstanding, Foucault's Virginity is not so much about Foucault as it is a series of three linked essays on a portion of the subject matter of his book The History of Sexuality, namely, representative erotic narratives of the Second Sophistic (c. 50-250). Appearances do, however, sell books. Here the title catches the attention while the cover's Renaissance drawing of the smiling, busty prostitute, whip raised, side-saddled upon grey-bearded Aristotle clinches the deal--a fair one because, in this case, appearances do not deceive.
As Eva Canterella has observed in her own studies of ancient sexuality, virtually all documents of the period narrate male desire, whether for women or other men. But while women are off-stage in the more philosophical treatments, just as they were in the classical drama, they are represented as central characters, even protagonists, in the erotic comedies discussed by Goldhill. In substantial part, the critique of Foucault is a criticism of inattention. The comedies of the transitional period between paganism and Christianity have been neglected, their spicier sections mistranslated, if translated at all. Everyone reads--or reads of--the Peripatetics, the Academicians, Stoics and Epicureans. Few are exposed to this popular material.
Goldhill focusses on four texts: Longus' Daphnis and Chloe; Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Cleitophon; Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe and the romance of Bacchon and Ismenadora inspiring Plutarch's dialogue Amatorius, the text most involving Foucault. Heliodorus' Aethiopica, Apuleius' Golden Ass and a host of other sources, fictional and philosophical, are discussed glancingly.
As slaves confound their masters in the New Comedy, so women are represented as confounding men in the Second Sophistic. So love confounds us all, then as now. While the traditional problematics of eroticism, marriage and gender are, with few exceptions, rather quaint, if not offensive, to we moderns, ancient erotic fiction, thanks to the allowances afforded comedy, can still entertain. This erudite book is, given its self-conscious appreciation of its subject matter, a pleasure to read and an enticement to a neglected literature.
As Eva Canterella has observed in her own studies of ancient sexuality, virtually all documents of the period narrate male desire, whether for women or other men. But while women are off-stage in the more philosophical treatments, just as they were in the classical drama, they are represented as central characters, even protagonists, in the erotic comedies discussed by Goldhill. In substantial part, the critique of Foucault is a criticism of inattention. The comedies of the transitional period between paganism and Christianity have been neglected, their spicier sections mistranslated, if translated at all. Everyone reads--or reads of--the Peripatetics, the Academicians, Stoics and Epicureans. Few are exposed to this popular material.
Goldhill focusses on four texts: Longus' Daphnis and Chloe; Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Cleitophon; Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe and the romance of Bacchon and Ismenadora inspiring Plutarch's dialogue Amatorius, the text most involving Foucault. Heliodorus' Aethiopica, Apuleius' Golden Ass and a host of other sources, fictional and philosophical, are discussed glancingly.
As slaves confound their masters in the New Comedy, so women are represented as confounding men in the Second Sophistic. So love confounds us all, then as now. While the traditional problematics of eroticism, marriage and gender are, with few exceptions, rather quaint, if not offensive, to we moderns, ancient erotic fiction, thanks to the allowances afforded comedy, can still entertain. This erudite book is, given its self-conscious appreciation of its subject matter, a pleasure to read and an enticement to a neglected literature.