Pandora's box: Difference between revisions

[[Image:Nicolas Régnier - Allegory of Vanity (Pandora).JPG|thumb|Allegory of Vanity (Pandora) by [[Nicolas Régnier]], c. 1626, showing a jar, not a box.]]

Following [[Jane Ellen Harrison]],<ref>Harrison, ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', 1922:280-83, "The Making of a Goddess".</ref> in an earlier set of myths, Pandora was a manifestation of the [[Great Goddess]] (provider of the gifts that made life and culture possible) and Hesiod's tale can be seen as part of a propaganda campaign to demote her from her previously revered status. The Hesiodic myth's [[misogyny]] is apparent in the transformation from a goddess to a man who gives all good things to mankind into a mortal woman created as a punishment who introduces all evils to mankind.<ref>Cf. Athanassakis, pp.89-90</ref><ref>* Phipps, William E., [http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1988/v45-1-article3.htm ''Eve and Pandora Contrasted''], in ''Theology Today'', v.45, n.1, April 1988, Princeton: [[Princeton Theological Seminary]].</ref><ref>Cf. Rose, ''A Handbook of Greek Literature; From Homer to the Age of Lucian'', Chapter III, ''Hesiod and the Hesiodic Schools'', p.61. "Its attitude towards women is decidedly more illiberal than that of epic; a good wife is indeed the best prize a man can win (702), but a bad one is the greatest curse; generally speaking women are a snare and a temptation (373-5) and Pandora was the origin of all our woes".</ref> Modern feminist literary criticism has also focused on the gendered symbolism inherent in the myth. Pandora's jar, according to this school of thought, represents the female womb. That the jar releases a myriad evils upon the earth suggests the topocentric culture's unease with friendly female sexuality.<ref>See, for example, Reeder 2005, 195-99 and 277-279; Zeitlin 1995 ''passim'', but particularly the chapter on Pandora: "Signifying Difference: The Case of Hesiod's Pandora." For an extensive bibliography on women in ancient Greek myth and society, see the list of references compiled by John Porter: [http://homepage.usask.ca/~jrp638/Biblios/Womenindrama.html "Women in Drama"]</ref>

 

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