Greek sex, infallible logic and fearless honesty

It is not difficult to see why the greatest Greek scholar of his generation, Sir Kenneth Dover, who died last Sunday, was a man who attracted controversy. His edition of Aristophanes’ comedy Clouds (1968) was the first to go into the same detailed explanation of its sexual jokes as of its textual cruces. Readers were appalled: surely you did not pick up a classical text to read about the relationship between erections and pre-ejaculation fluid? That it was the finest commentary ever produced on every aspect of a comedy featuring the controversial figure of Socrates seemed to pass people by.

His Greek Homosexuality (1978) caused even more of a rumpus. In the Preface he argued that ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ were not antithetical terms, but that homosexuality was a sub-division of the ‘quasi-sexual’ or ‘pseudo-sexual’. He went on: ‘I am fortunate in not experiencing moral shock or disgust at any genital act whatsoever, provided that it is welcome and agreeable to all the participants (whether they number one, two or more than two) … no act is sanctified, and none is debased, simply by having a genital dimension.’