ΕΑΝ ΠΡΟΤΙΜΑΤΕ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΠΑΤΗΣΤΕ ΤΗ ΣΗΜΑΙΑ ΣΤΟ ΚΑΤΩ ΜΕΡΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΟΘΟΝΗΣ
Helen of Troy is the greatest symbol of beauty in literature precisely because Homer never describes her physical appearance; by leaving her undefined, he allows every generation and every reader to imagine their own absolute ideal of beauty, giving Helen an infinite and timeless character. (Those of you who are interested in reading more about the tragic figure of Professor Liantinis, who committed suicide at a fairly young age, please link here).
By Helleniscope’s Editorial Team
Before we listen to Professor Liantinis’ remarkable interpretation of Helen of Troy, it’s worth noting that his argument is not really about Helen’s beauty. It is about Homer’s genius.
In the famous scene from the Iliad, Helen appears on the walls of Troy before King Priam and the Trojan elders. Priam, a wise old king who has suffered immensely during the war, looks upon the woman whose presence has brought ten years of bloodshed. Yet instead of condemning her, he acknowledges something extraordinary about her beauty.
At first, Liantinis focuses on a single Homeric word: a word suggesting that Helen resembles the immortal goddesses in a way that is awe-inspiring, even terrifying. Beauty, he argues, is not merely pleasant or attractive. The highest beauty carries within it an element of danger, wonder, and destruction. It overwhelms us. It has the power to change destinies.
But then Liantinis turns to a deeper question: What did Helen actually look like?
Was she tall or short? Blonde or dark-haired? Blue-eyed or black-eyed? Slender or full-figured?
Homer never tells us.
And that, Liantinis says, is precisely the point.
Had Homer described Helen in detail, he would have limited her. Every reader has different tastes, different ideals, different visions of beauty. Any specific description would make Helen merely one beautiful woman among many. Instead, Homer leaves her undefined. He gives us no fixed image, allowing each generation and each reader to imagine Helen according to their own highest conception of beauty.
In this way, Helen becomes more than a person. She becomes an idea—an eternal symbol of beauty itself.
According to Liantinis, this is why Helen remains unrivaled. Not because Homer described the most beautiful woman who ever lived, but because he described a beauty so vast that it could never be contained by physical details. The greatest beauty, he suggests, is sometimes found not in what is shown, but in what is left unsaid.
HERE IS THE REMARKABLE VIDEO OF THE TRAGIC FIGURE OF LIANTINIS ABOUT HELEN OF TROY AND THE IDEA OF BEAUTY
Ἶρις δ᾽ αὖθ᾽ Ἑλένῃ λευκωλένῳ ἄγγελος ἦλθεν
(Iris d’ auth’ Helenē leukōlenō angelos ēlthen) book 3 of The Iliad
The epithet “Ελένη λευκώλενω (“white-armed”) tells us quite a bit about how Homer envisioned Helen. While a dark-skinned actress can, of course, portray Helen legally and artistically, casting Lupita Nyong’o as both Helen and Clytemnestra cannot seriously be described as faithful to the Homeric text. Homer chose his words carefully, and λευκώλενος was not inserted by accident.
This is not a question of legality but of fidelity. Directors are free to reinterpret ancient works as they wish; audiences are equally free to note when an adaptation departs from its source material. In this case, the departure is so obvious that it invites the suspicion that Homer has been subordinated to contemporary ideological fashions. The result may satisfy modern cultural expectations and award committees, but it does little to honor the poet whose work is supposedly being adapted.
I agree with Eleni’s opinion. Anger at Christopher Nolan and accusations of sinister plots to deny us of our patrimony are misplaced and only underline our feelings of inferiority towards our ancestors and lack of modern accomplishments by Greeks, to match those of our ancestors’. If we get all worked up whenever we perceive as someone having hijacked our ancient forebears’ work, which in reality it belongs to the world and not to us, we’re hurting ourselves. People know that there was no such thing as black Athena. That theory has met its deserved fate, which is total extinction. The same with black Achilles, gay Alexander the Great, black Cleopatra and now a black Helen.
I propose that we should actually feel proud of others mimicking and adopting as their own, our ancestors’ accomplishments. After all, who would want to adopt an unworthy Iliad as their own? Think of it this way: Modern medicine utilizes Greek language at the rate of 90% in its terminology. The words used are not spelled exactly as the original. Do we complain that our language is being expropriated and it should stop, or we would boycott it? Even futuristic inventions, such as AI uses more Greek words than English. Think of Amazon, Anthropic, Meta, alphabet, microsoft and of course Artemis spaceship
Yes,
the undefined beauty of Helen, underscores the “Undefined Beauty” of the Hellenic Civilization, that Prof. Liantinis tried admirably to profess and enlighten his students at the School of Philosophy at the University of Athens. His honorable work as an accomplished scholar ,a profound orator of the classics, he is a landmark, for comprehending the exhaustive powerful characteristics that inspired Hellenic Beauty. Regrettably, he was trapped by his notable studies to advance the dynamic virtues of the Hellenic Civilization. The tragic lack of respecting Hellenic Paideia, the fallible fact of the diminishing modern world by contamination, that did not qualitatively merit society. Tragically, the shinning lights having been turned out, he chose to vacate , apparently a sacrificial protest , as to not witness its self annihilation.
Thank You for the article on Prof. Liantinis’s instructive opinions on the various merits of beauty.
Correct. Helen was Dorian. The Dorians according to there own ethnography came “from the north”.
Around 1996, when this lecture was given, there was not even a remote dream of what Hollywood did today, to depict Helen as black. Political correctness was limited to feminism then – it was not racial at all. Liantinis obviously points to the artistic “perfection” of Homer’s poetry and its inspirational value…
As for Dorian, yes it is true… The Dorians at a later time emigrated to Crete, the Dodecanese and to Cyprus. This IS where the majority of our family’s DNA comes from… I can tell by looking at the green eyes and the very light skin of my first-born son…