Centaurs and Amazons: Women and the Pre-History of the Great Chain of Being

by Page duBois

In Centaurs and Amazons, Page duBois offers a prehistory of hierarchy. Using structural anthropology, symbolic analysis, and recent literary theory, she demonstrates a shift in Greek thought from the fifth to the fourth century B.C. that had a profound influence upon subsequent Western culture and politics.

Through an analysis of mythology, drama, sculpture, architecture, and Greek vase painting, duBois documents the transition from a system of thought that organized the experience of difference in terms of polarity and analogy to one based upon a relatively rigid hierarchical scheme. This was the beginning of "the great chain of being," the philosophical construct that all life was organized in minute gradations of superiority and inferiority. This scheme, in various guises, has continued to influence philosophical and political thought.

The author's intelligent and discriminating use of scholarship from various fields makes Centaurs and Amazons an impressive interdisciplinary study of interest to classicists, feminist scholars, historians, art historians, anthropologists, and political scientists.

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[The Kid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like my review of DuBois' Sappho book, I must say here that this book shows its time. Some may be annoyed by this, especially those among you who are annoyed or bored with structuralist work. This text is pretty thoroughly saturated with structuralism. The intro acknowledges debts to Levi-Strauss and the work of other structural anthropologists without explicitly framing the investment in structuralism (perhaps this is because the book was written in 1982 and classics is exceptionally slow to adopt/try out theoretical perspectives). At times, the investment is heavy handed (a general criticism of structuralism?) and so feels forced. Here I am thinking specifically of how DuBois is pushing endogamy as central to and a defining feature of culture (in line with L.S) in her analysis of centaurs, amazons, and barbarians. But even here there are some excellent and convincing points.

Ultimately, DuBois attempts to trace a transition from a process of differentiation which is predicated upon polar opposition, a process which is invested in defining the center of the polis (the free, male, greek, citizen) against what is and what must remain at the margins (the barbarian, female, slave, animal), that which defines the center in the 5th century to a process of differentiation through hierarchy in the 4th century. Her investigation of the 5th century focuses on sculpture, vase paintings, and tragedy while her focus on the 4th century is on Plato and Aristotle. Indeed, the process of differentiation through hierarchy which she locates in the 4th century is particularly and specifically an invention of philosophy (to recall Edith Hall's "Invention of the Barbarian"). I find the work DuBois does on the 4th century to be a little dissatisfying, perhaps because it feels a little hurried as it is laid out in only one chapter (vs. the 5 chapters for thinking about polar opposition in the 5th century). And her emphasis on hierarchy in the 4th leads her to not fully take into account/consider the essential hierarchical nature of polar opposition.

I'm fond of DuBois, I'm not going to lie. Although I don't always love her books, there is always something to like. And I will always recommend her work.