Women in Greek epic are treated as objects, as commodities to be exchanged in marriage or as the spoils of warfare. However, women in Homeric epic also use objects to negotiate their own agency, subverting the male viewpoint by utilizing on their own terms the very form they themselves are thought by men to embody. Such female objects can transcend their physical limitations and be both symbolically significant and powerfully characterizing. They can be tools of recognition and identification. They can pause narrative and be used agonistically. They can send messages and be vessels for memory. Women of Substance in Homeric Epic offers a new and insightful approach to the Iliad and Odyssey, bringing together Gender Theory and the burgeoning field of New Materialisms, new to classical studies, and thereby combining an approach predicated on the idea of the woman as object with one which questions the very distinction between subject and object. This productive tension leads us to decentre the male subject and to put centre stage not only the woman as object but also the agency of women and objects. The volume comes at a turning point in the gendering of Homeric studies, with the publication of the first English translations by women of the Iliad in 2015 and the Odyssey in 2017, by Caroline Alexander and Emily Wilson respectively. It makes a significant contribution to scholarship by demonstrating that women in Homeric epic are not only objectified, but are also well-versed users of objects; this is something that Homer portrays clearly, that Odysseus understands, but that has often escaped many other men, from Odysseus' alter ego Aethon in Odyssey 19 to modern experts on Homeric epic.

About the Author
Lilah Grace Canevaro is Lecturer in Greek at the University of Edinburgh. She has been a Leverhulme Fellow in Edinburgh and a Humboldt Fellow in Heidelberg, and gained her PhD at Durham University in 2012. She is the author of Hesiod's Works and Days: How to Teach Self-Sufficiency (OUP, 2015) and co-editor with Paola Bassino and Barbara Graziosi of Conflict and Consensus in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry (CUP, 2017).

Reviews
an engaging and accessible book that will be of interest to those studying both women and objects in ancient literary contexts. The innovative approach is a significant contribution to studies of Homeric women, as it provides a more nuanced understanding of female gender roles and expectations in Homer ... This book also contributes to the understanding of how objects operate and how humans interact with objects in Homeric epic. Those interested in male liminality will also find this book useful, due to the inclusion of Odysseus and Hephaestus. The book might also serve as an excellent starting point for further examinations of the relationship between humans and objects in Homer. * Andrea Pittard, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
This book is a literary study about women using, rather than merely being, objects to influence and making their own contribution to the action of the Iliad and Odyssey as well as that of the Hesiodic corpus ... The book contains an extensive bibliography and indices of passages cited and subjects as well as a small number of black and white illustrations. All Greek is translated so it is accessible to non-Greek readers, but it will remain chiefly of interest to an academic audience with a specialist interest in Homeric poetry. * Claire Gruzelier, Classics for All *
Recommended. * CHOICE *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198826309
Author Lilah Grace Canevaro
Format Hardback
Page Count 332
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 538g
Dimensions(mm) 224mm * 145mm * 25mm