Seduction and Power Antiquity in the Visual and Performing Arts

This volume focuses on the reception of antiquity in the performing and visual arts from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century. It explores the tensions and relations of gender, sexuality, eroticism and power in reception. Such universal themes dictated plots and characters of myth and drama, but also served to portray historical figures, events and places from Classical history. Their changing reception and reinterpretation across time has created stereotypes, models of virtue or immoral conduct, that blend the original features from the ancient world with a diverse range of visual and performing arts of the modern era.The volume deconstructs these traditions and shows how arts of different periods interlink to form and transmit these images to modern audiences and viewers. Drawing on contributions from across Europe and the United States, a trademark of the book is the inclusive treatment of all the arts beyond the traditional limits of academic disciplines.

Silke Knippschild is senior lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Bristol, UK.
Marta Garcia Morcillo is a lecturer in ancient history at the University of Wales, UK.

Introduction \ Part 1: Ancient Western Asia \ 1. Woman on top? Women's suffrage and the power of the 'oriental woman' - Silke Knippschild \ 2. Power, sin and seduction in Babylon - the case of Verdi's Nabucco - Michael Seymour \ 3. Jewel-in-the-belly-button orientalism in Oliver Stone's Alexander - Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones \ Part 2: Greece \ 4. Helen, Penelope and Dido in Rossi's Odissea and Eneide - Martin Winkler \ 5. Dark ladies, bad girls, demon queens: female power and seduction from Greek tragedy to pop culture - Martina Treu \ 6. Trojan lovers and warriors - Eric Shanower \ 7. Film genres in cinematic adaptations of Greek tragedy - Pantelis Michelakis \ 8. Circe in literature and art of the Renaissance - Irene Berti \ 9. The erotics of power in Coca's Ifigenia - Maite Clavo \ 10. 'Prince of painters': the grimacing mask of power and seduction in Aristophanes' The Assemblywomen - Maddalena Giovannelli and Andrea Capra \ 11. Myth and tragedy in opera staging in the 21st century - Montserrat Reig and Jesus Carruesco \ 12. Isadora Duncan, Russian ballet and the seduction of Minoan Crete - Nicoletta Momigliano \ 13. Nelly and the nudes on the Athenian Acropolis in the Fascist era - Constantina Katsari \ 14. The lure of the hermaphrodite for the English Aesthetes - Charlotte Ribeyrol \ Part 3: Rome \ 15. The stolen seduction - Oscar Lapena \ 16. The great seducer - Cleopatra, queen and sex symbol - Francisco Pina Polo \ 17. Seduced, defeated and forever damned - Marc Antony in post-Classical imagery - Marta Garcia Morcillo \ 18. Caligula in pop culture - Martin Lindner \ 19. The reputation of Agrippina the Younger - Mary R. McHugh \ 20. Hadrian, Antinous and the power of seduction - Charo Rivera \ 21. Saint or prostitute? - the reception of empress Theodora - Filippo Carla \ 22. History, moral and power - the ancient world in 19th century Spanish art - Antonio Dupla \ Conclusion