The notorious image of Pandora haunts mythology: a woman created as punishment for the crimes of man, she is the bearer of hope yet also responsible for the Earth’ s desolation. She binds together perpetuating dichotomies that underlie the most fundamental aspects of the Western canon:   beauty and evil, body and soul, depth and superficiality, truth and lie. Speaking in multiplicity, Pandora emerges as the first sign of female complexity.
        In this compelling study, Vered Lev Kenaan offers a radical revision of the Greek myth of the first woman. She...