Athene: Image And Energy (Arkana S.) - Softcover

Shearer, Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140194959 ISBN 13: 9780140194951

Publisher: Penguin, 1998

Synopsis

What is the place of Athene's powerful female energy in today's society? Ann Shearer explores the evocations of the goddess through the ages, powerfully revealing a crucial aspect fo the feminine psyche. "A fascinating and compelling exploration... this books is itself as model of what Athene is about: patient, reflective craftedness, and an imaginative reach which never loses touch with the immediacy of the image or the complexity of its energy" Jules Cashford in Harvest.

About this title

Synopsis:

Images of the Greek goddess Athene tell us something about "the feminine", and so have relevance to our current debates on gender and the nature of women and men. This book traces how the original power of these images (themselves created by male-dominated Greek society, so perhaps already altered from an original archetype) have been watered down and made respectable over the centuries. It also demonstrates particularly how this mattered in the 19th century, when women were beginning to storm male citadels and when a certain version of Athene - as protectress of civic virtues - was widespread. By tracing the relationship of Freud and Jung to the goddess - both interested, yet neither using her image to expand ideas of feminine strengths - it will show how our views of the feminine today are still constrained by those of the founding fathers of depth psychology. Finally, it will look at how Athene, most complex of the Olympian deities, might appear to us today.

About the Author:

Ann Shearer is a Jungian analyst with a private practice in London and Oxford. Before training with the Independent Group of Analytical Psychologists, she worked as a journalist, first with the Guardian and then freelance. She lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0140194959
• ISBN 13: 9780140194951
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344