The Meaning of Helen: In Search of an Ancient Icon

Helen’s face launched a thousand ships, to say nothing of countless books, dramas, poems, paintings, and operas. She is arguably the most notorious woman in Western culture. What makes her so engaging, so consequential? Like an ancient wall layered with millennia of graffiti, Helen preserves the human record. Her story and our story are not to be plied apart. She is woman as we have idealized, worshipped, slandered, celebrated, constructed and deconstructed her. Helen, for better or for worse, in all her metamorphoses, represents the complex, intact fossil record of woman in Western culture. The story of Helen is the story of woman.

Special Features

• Helen and History
• The Many Helens
• The Duality of Helen
• The First Helen
• The Truth of Helen