Divine Might
Goddesses in Greek Myth
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- 59,00 kr
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Get ready to meet the goddesses . . .
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Stone Blind and Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes.
These are the stories of the Greek goddesses. As fearsome, powerful and beloved as their male counterparts, it’s time to look beyond the columns of a ruined temple to the awesome power within.
We meet Hera, who, whilst most often known for enacting vicious, creative revenge on the women – mortal or otherwise – who catch the wandering eye of her husband Zeus, turns out not to be such a villain after all.
We meet Demeter, a mother who will go to any lengths, no matter the cost, to retrieve her daughter Persephone from Hades’ clutches.
We’ll be introduced to The Furies, three women who will literally go to the ends of the earth to enact bloody vengeance but who, surprisingly, are the goddesses who can teach us the most about the way we live now.
Examining the role of these goddesses and more, Divine Might will change everything you thought you knew about our most ancient stories. Full of fire, fury and devotion, Natalie Haynes brings the divine women of Olympia kicking and screaming into the modern age.
'The great champion of women in Greek myth . . . One of the delights of the book is that Haynes reacquaints us with forgotten goddesses' – Daily Mail
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this zippy study, Haynes (Pandora's Jar), a novelist and classicist, opines on depictions of Aphrodite, Artemis, Demeter, and other Greek goddesses in literature and pop culture. For instance, she pushes back against Ovid's portrayal in Metamorphoses of Hera, Zeus's wife, who holds captive one of Zeus's paramours whom the god turned into a cow in a vain attempt to disguise his adultery, as a "pathologically jealous wife." Haynes instead suggests Hera's response is justified and represents the concerns of fifth-century BCE Athens women who had no legal ability to initiate divorce but could be left by their husbands for other women. According to Haynes, Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, is defined by her unflappability in the face of attempted humiliation, as seen in a story from Homer's Odyssey in which Aphrodite shrugs off getting caught cheating on her husband with Ares. The lighthearted tone and humor will keep even those already familiar with Greek mythology entertained through lengthy recaps of various legends ("I didn't start this book expecting to compare Arnold Schwarzenegger to the goddess Artemis," Haynes writes, "but we are where we are"), making the stories fresh and accessible for a new generation. The result is a fun take on Greek myth.
