Athene: Image and Energy

by Ann Shearer

From the moment Athene sprang full-grown from her father Zeus's head, a new image of the feminine was born to Western consciousness. Starting from a penetrating analysis of the goddess's mythologies and beginnings, Ann Shearer examines how mainstream consciousness, from the early Church Fathers onward, has diluted and even suppressed the original power of the image of Athene. Using an engagingly colloquial tone of voice, she provides easy access to Athene's world, letting each myth stand on its own and allowing readers to come to their own conclusions about this paradoxical goddess of war and healing. An important resource and guide, with extensive bibliography and endnotes, Athene presents the goddess in all her complexity and magnificence.

Genres: Mythology, History

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1997

Reviews

[Μιτς Γιωτίξ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Lots of information just like Kerenyi's "Athene" book- I wasn't really surprised since Kerenyi's work was part of the book's sources. It gives a rather spherical view of the ancient greek worship of Athena, plus various interesting tidbits of Athena-related information throughout the ages. The translation was good, too, with only some infrequent typos.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I attended a talk by the author recently and was impressed by her compassionate, insightful, balanced but committed and unassumingly erudite presentation, qualities that are amply reflected in this book. Odysseus is my favourite of the Homeric heroes, and his particular patroness, Athene fascinates me as well. Shearer uses the history of the myths, iconography and interpretations of this goddess as the pivot around which revolves a discussion of concepts of feminine energies as active, creative and aggressive rather than the more common depiction of the nature of the feminine as being inward, domestic, passive. She covers a great deal of ground in the process, ranging across both space and time, visiting several other goddesses including Inanna, Minerva and Durga along the way as well as touching on historical figures or events that have embodied elements of the feminine persona as depicted in the figure of Athene such as Elizabeth the first of England and Florence Nightingale. She draws on classical, Christian, Gnostic, psychoanalytical and feminist perspectives and ends by pointing the way to a fuller, more inclusive understanding of gender, one in which characteristics that have been set in opposition over the ages are reconciled rather than polarised. In a way, this links this earlier work to her most recent book, a collaborative work on conciliatory justice. The latter work was the subject of the talk I attended, and will be the subject of a future review.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where this book excelled was the structure. Tracing how Athene, as a figure and as an archetype, has shifted throughout religious and real-life venues, is a pretty cool concept -- and to set it up with a few contextual chapters on her mythological attributes, then segue into history, worked well. Her research on individual subjects was thorough, but that academic-interest thing came into play full force when deciding said subjects (a full chapter on Florence Nightinggale? Really?). Engaging writing (though, full disclosure, I did skim some parts which weren't of much initial interest), and a clear love for her topic. I expected a bit more on the literary iterations of the Athene archetype...but maybe that's yet to be written...