Abstract
Women in epic are usually the victims of its reges et proelia: for them, war means suffering and loss, and political drives are insignificant. Throughout the epic tradition, however, there is a sprinkling of women who are not innocent, passive victims of the poem’s narrative and generic drive, but themselves active participants in its movement. The aim of this paper is to explore the range of possibilities for these various "Amazons". Are they inverters, subverters, or converters of heroic masculinity? Is their representation based wholly on the gulf between female norms and the warrior woman’s deviant Otherness, or do they bring some feminine contribution to the construction of the political and martial hero?
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Women and War in Antiquity |
| Editors | Jacqueline Fabre-Serris , Alison Keith |
| Publisher | Johns Hopkins University Press |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |