14 - Identification and Distance in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans: Subjects and Their Absences

Summary

This chapter explores the interplay between identification and distance that Lucian sets up for his readers in relationship to the speaking characters in the Dialogues of the Courtesans. While readers are, at times, invited to identify with the plights of these ‘others’ as partners in restrictive power structures, at other times, the otherness of the courtesans is emphasised through female verbal markers, female-specific cults, and women-only sexuality. Again and again, the subjectivity of the courtesan is offered to the reader, only to be withdrawn from their grasp. And, in fact, in its current form, the collection begins with a soldier and ends with a virgin – the courtesan managing to slip away. Lucian’s play with the courtesan’s subjectivity leaves his readers full of suspicions about intentional misdirection, both by the characters within the stories and by the author Lucian himself.