Sexual Life in Ancient Greece

Sinopse

According to Hans Licht, author of Sexual Life in Ancient Greece, we cannot fully understand human creativity or such human endeavors as philosophy, art, or literature without first taking into consideration the sexual elements that enter into them. To Dr. Licht, the Greeks were a prime example of the influence of sexuality on human creativity, and in this extraordinary and erudite book he has given us a very thorough and very readable study of the subject.
Dr. Licht begins his study with the Greek ideals of life. Next he discusses the position of women in Greece, marriage customs, and married life. In turn he considers the Greek attitude toward the human body, festivals, games, and the theatre, and the relation between religion and the erotic. Later sections deal with the erotic in Greek literature, the different forms of sexual relationships, prostitution, and homosexual love. All combine to produce a book that is, in the words of the Times Literary Supplement, “a very full study of the Greek outlook as manifested in the matters of sex.”