The temptress, the shoemaker and the jealous woman - An examination of the sexual liberties of women in Herodas’ mimiambs.
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2021-07-01
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en
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The temptress, the shoemaker and the jealous woman. The three titles of three mimiambs written by Herodas. What has not been researched so far is the topic of sexual freedom of the women in Herodas’ mimes. Herodas’ focus on women gives us an opportunity to look into this “female” perspective by analysing the different ways in which their characters have been portrayed. Were these women truly as free and careless as they come across at first sight? And how do men influence how freely they speak and act? In his mimiambs, Herodas portrays women with different legal and social statuses: enslaved and free, uninvolved, married and widowed. Herodas, however, focuses much more on the
emotions and behaviour of the women than their social context. The freedom with which the women speak for most free women does not match the predictions that result from their classification. This thesis supports what Finnegan
suggests, that Herodas plays with the idea that men have of conversations between women when they are left alone.
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Faculteit der Letteren