Emily Hauser – författare

How the idea of the author was born in the battleground of genderWhen Sappho sang her songs, the only word that existed to describe a poet was a male one—aoidos, or “singer-man.” The most famous woman poet of ancient Greece, whose craft was one of words, had no words with which to talk about who she was and what she did. In How Women Became Poets, Emily Hauser rewrites the story of Greek literature as one of gender, arguing that the ways the Greeks talked about their identity as poets constructed, played with, and broke down gender expectations that literature was for men alone. Bringing together recent studies in ancient authorship, gender, and performativity, Hauser offers a new history of classical literature that redefines the canon as a constant struggle to be heard through, and sometimes despite, gender.Women, as Virginia Woolf recognized, need rooms of their own in order to write. So, too, have women writers through history needed a name to describe what it is they do. Hauser traces the invention of that name in ancient Greece, exploring the archaeology of the gendering of the poet. She follows ancient Greek poets, philosophers, and historians as they developed and debated the vocabulary for authorship on the battleground of gender—building up and reinforcing the word for male poet, then in response creating a language with which to describe women who write. Crucially, Hauser reinserts women into the traditionally all-male canon of Greek literature, arguing for the centrality of their role in shaping ideas around authorship and literary production.

Brought to you by Penguin.Award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends, and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer''s Iliad and Odyssey . . .Contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it''s not only men''s stories that deserve to be told.In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.''Bold and intellectually thrilling . . . blending history and science, rigorous scholarship and dazzling feats of imagination.'' TOM HOLLAND, historian and co-host of ''The Rest is History'' podcast''Absolutely blew me away . . . rich, evocative and original work . . . this book is quite wonderful.'' ELODIE HARPER, author of The Wolf Den''Offers a dazzling new way of thinking about the ancient world . . . a wonderful, beautifully written and important book.'' DAN JONES, author of Henry V''A book the world has been waiting for . . . I loved it.'' BETTANY HUGHES, author of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World© Emily Hauser 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025