Reactions to the beautiful body in Classical Athens : a tri-genre approach
Economist Daniel Hamermesh's groundbreaking Beauty Pays, building upon his earlier research, opens with the sentence: âModern man is obsessed with beauty. âHis book analyses how beautiful individuals benefit (mainly financially) from their appearances, a phenomenon he had previously termed the âbeauty premium'. Since his first article on the topic, many disciplines have followed suit, examining the beauty premium within their respective contexts of politics, law, and other social sciences. Contrary to the beauty premium is the concept of a beauty penalty, whereby the beautiful individual is harmed rather than benefited from his/her looks. Hamermesh's findings are by no means limited to the modern world and his opening sentence could be adapted to read: âMan is, and always has been, obsessed with beauty.â In this thesis, I argue that beauty premiums and penalties can similarly be seen in operation in Classical Athens. I do so by identifying and analysing reactions to the beautiful human body via a cross-section of three popular literary genres: old comedy, the writings of Xenophon and attic oratory. These genres show that reactions to beauty in Classical Athens were pervasive and yet variegated. Each
Hymes, Elsbeth Joy
Reactions to the beautiful body in Classical Athens : a tri-genre approach. Economist Daniel Hamermesh's groundbreaking Beauty Pays, building upon his earlier research, opens with the sentence: âModern man is obsessed with beauty. âHis book analyses how beautiful individuals benefit (mainly financially) from their appearances, a phenomenon he had previously termed the âbeauty premium'. Since his first article on the topic, many disciplines have followed suit, examining the beauty premium within their respective contexts of politics, law, and other social sciences. Contrary to the beauty premium is the concept of a beauty penalty, whereby the beautiful individual is harmed rather than benefited from his/her looks. Hamermesh's findings are by no means limited to the modern world and his opening sentence could be adapted to read: âMan is, and always has been, obsessed with beauty.â In this thesis, I argue that beauty premiums and penalties can similarly be seen in operation in Classical Athens. I do so by identifying and analysing reactions to the beautiful human body via a cross-section of three popular literary genres: old comedy, the writings of Xenophon and attic oratory. These genres show that reactions to beauty in Classical Athens were pervasive and yet variegated. Each
reactions beautiful body classical_athens tri genre approach economist beauty build_upon early open sentence modern man beauty book analyse beautiful individual benefit mainly financially appearance phenomenon previously term beauty since first article topic many discipline follow suit examine beauty within respective context politics law social_sciences contrary beauty concept beauty penalty whereby beautiful individual harm rather benefit his_her look finding mean limited modern_world open sentence could adapt read man always beauty argue beauty penalty similarly see operation classical_athens identify analyse reaction beautiful human_body via cross_section popular literary_genre old comedy writing xenophon attic oratory genre show reaction beauty classical_athens pervasive yet