Women in classical texts: the teaching of literature in articulation with the ESI

Abstract

In this article we will approach the figures of Sophocles' Antigone (442 BC) and Euripides' Medea (431 BC) from a feminist perspective that allows us to review the development of these characters, constructed by men, within their historical context and relate them to the present. We clarify that the gender perspective was incorporated into classical studies from the seventies onwards, as Caballero, Huber and Rabaza point out (2000: 7), so we do not intend to demand non-patriarchal writing from poets, but rather to carry out a critical reading consciously mediated by this contemporary knowledge. On the other hand, it should be noted that since the implementation of the National Comprehensive Sexual Education Program (law 26.150/06) it has become necessary to rethink the content we teach in the classrooms (in this case, Classical Literature in Teacher Training and its transmission in secondary school). Since the law promotes, among other things, “equal treatment and opportunities for men and women” (article 3), the historical analysis of female representations in ancient literature is pertinent. Among the guidelines of the Program, the relationship of this topic with human rights is also proposed. Both tragic heroines expose the disadvantages of being women in Greece in the 5th century BC, socially condemned for carrying out actions that go against masculine provisions. Thus, they position themselves, unintentionally, in the place of transgression. In this way, they escape from the vulnerable place in which they had been placed.