Events Calendar

Sponsored by the Friends of the Madison Public Library

She is the most beautiful woman in the world. She is the daughter of a god. She is the cause of a war. She ran away; she was kidnapped; she never went to Troy at all. Few mythic names have captivated readers and thinkers so enduringly as that of Helen of Troy, famed for her remarkable beauty and her troubling behavior. Often regarded in contemporary literature as equal parts casus belli and femme fatale, Helen is the subject of centuries’ worth of debate surrounding whether she was kidnapped or left willingly for Troy and what her elusive mythic figure really represents. This program will provide an outline of the myth as it appears in  antiquity, as well as an introduction to the interpretations and re-interpretations of Helen in the millennia since she first appeared at her loom in Homer’s "Iliad". We will discuss the potential Indo-European origins of the myth, the conflicting ancient accounts of Helen’s life and mysterious death, and the most famous presentations of her—ancient and modern—as we explore how it is that one woman can be the source of a thousand stories.

Email

Text

Add to Calendar

Add to My Events