ABSTRACT
The archetypal image of the hero is familiar and has been described extensively in analytical psychology (Campbell 1949; Jung 1912; Kerenyi 1959; Neumann 1954). There is, however, no reference in these works to ‘heroine’ nor any description as to who she might be or what characterises her. We are left to assume, along with the Oxford English Dictionary, that ‘heroine’ is the feminine form of hero, or in other words, a female hero. The concept of the ‘heroine’ is relatively recent as compared with that of the ‘hero’, and the term ‘heroine’ was not used in Homeric or classical Greek literature until it appears for the first time, used ironically, in Aristophanes’ play, Clouds. Even more remarkably it was not used in English and French medieval literature. ‘Heroine’ appears to have come into regular use first in French and then in English classical language, where it evokes a classical world in which the concept would have been unknown.
