Commentary #3 (Aspasia)

Behind Every Great Man…(yada yada yada)

In her article, “sex, lies, and manuscript: Refiguring Aspasia in the History of Rhetoric,” Cheryl Glenn writes, “As part of the feminist challenge to the history of rhetoric, I want to reconstruct and refigure a woman whose texts, life, and manuscripts have been annexed by men: Aspasia of Miletus.”

The word that piqued my interest in the sentence quoted above was “annexed,” and Glenn did not disappoint in explaining how it applies to Aspasia.

First of all, Glenn tells us Aspasia was already a remarkable woman of extraordinary circumstances before she even relocated from Miletus to Athens. She had become educated at a time when Athenian girls did not read, much less attend school, and very few women were allowed to venture beyond the domestic domain of home, marriage, and motherhood.

Aspasia’s intimate relationship with the briliant Pericles no doubt helped bring her to the attention of his socially prominent peers. At the same time, however, Pericles’ intimate relationship with the brilliant Aspasia apparently enriched his body of work, his academic stature, and his reputation as well. Because women were not invited into the male arena of rhetoric, Pericles was able to incorporate Aspasia’s work into his own, without qualms. Glenn reminds us that some sources have credited Aspasia with writing Pericles’ well-know funeral oration, elevating Pericles’ level of education through her instruction, organizing and operating “an academy for young women of good families…that soon became a popular salon for the most influential men of the day: Socrates, Plato, Anaxagoras, Sophocles, Phidias, and Pericles” (184), and basically ghost-writing a number of the rhetorical creations for which he took credit. If Aspasia authored as many of Pericles’ creations as has been hinted at by several scholars, then she truly personifies the old saw, “Behind every great man is a great woman.” The regret is that we can’t experience Aspasia directly and personally through her own words, her own work. Unless such gems are eventually uncovered, we’re left with only second-hand impressions from the men who annexed her texts, life, and manuscripts.


Work Cited

Glenn, Cheryl. “sex, lies, and manuscript: Refiguring Aspasia in the History of Rhetoric.” College Composition and Communication 45 (1994): 181-199.