Stealing Helen

The Myth of the Abducted Wife in Comparative Perspective

Lowell Edmunds

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9780691202334
  9780691165127
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400874224
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: Literature

It's a familiar story: a beautiful woman is abducted and her husband journeys to recover her. This story's best-known incarnation is also a central Greek myth—the abduction of Helen that led to the Trojan War. Stealing Helen surveys a vast range of folktales and texts exhibiting the story pattern of the abducted beautiful wife and makes a detailed comparison with the Helen of Troy myth. Lowell Edmunds shows that certain Sanskrit, Welsh, and Old Irish texts suggest there was an Indo-European story of the abducted wife before the Helen myth of the Iliad became known.

Investigating Helen's status in ancient Greek sources, Edmunds argues that if Helen was just one trope of the abducted wife, the quest for Helen's origin in Spartan cult can be abandoned, as can the quest for an Indo-European goddess who grew into the Helen myth. He explains that Helen was not a divine essence but a narrative figure that could replicate itself as needed, at various times or places in ancient Greece. Edmunds recovers some of these narrative Helens, such as those of the Pythagoreans and of Simon Magus, which then inspired the Helens of the Faust legend and Goethe.

Stealing Helen offers a detailed critique of prevailing views behind the "real" Helen and presents an eye-opening exploration of the many sources for this international mythical and literary icon.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1: “The Abduction of the Beautiful Wife” As International Tale
• 2: Dioscuri
• 3: Helen Myth
• 4: Hypostases of Helen
• 5: Helen in the Fifth Century and After
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Examples of “The Abduction of the Beautiful Wife”
• Appendix 2: Inventory of Art Objects
• Notes
• References
• Index Locorum
• General Index