Centaurs and Amazons - 9780472081530

Centaurs and AmazonsWomen and the Pre-History of the Great Chain of Being\nAuthor(s): Page duBois\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: The University of Michigan Press, United States\nImprint: The University of Michigan Press\nISBN-13: 9780472081530, 978-0472081530\nSynopsis\nIn 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 [url] 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 .