This collection of essays, the result of a 2006 conference at the University of Wales in Lampeter, look at the influence of philosophical texts on the ancient novel. In both Greek and Latin novels substantial traces of philosophical ideas can be found; these essays discuss the levels on which they were intended to operate, and how they were meant to resonate with their audiences. Specific authors discussed include Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, Apuleius and Lucian, while the philosophical influences include Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics.
Hadot shows how the schools, trends, and ideas of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy strove to transform the individual's mode of perceiving and being in the world. For the ancients, philosophical theory and the philosophical way of life were inseparably linked. Hadot asks us to consider whether and how this connection might be reestablished today.
The papers assembled in this volume explore a relatively new area in scholarship on the ancient novel: the relationship between an ostensibly non-philosophical genre and philosophy. This approach opens up several original themes for further research and debate. Platonising fiction was popular in the Second Sophistic and it took a variety of forms, ranging from the intertextual to the allegorical, and discussions of the origins of the novel-genre in antiquity have centred on the role of Socratic dialogue in general and Plato's dialogues in particular as important precursors. The papers in this collection cover a variety of genres, ranging from the Greek and Roman novels to utopian narratives and fictional biographies, and seek by diverse methods to detect philosophical resonances in these texts.
This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline. Distinguished philosopher John Cooper traces how, for many ancient thinkers, philosophy was not just to be studied or even used to solve particular practical problems. Rather, philosophy--not just ethics but even logic and physical theory--was literally to be lived. Yet there was great disagreement about how to live philosophically: philosophy was not one but many, mutually opposed, ways of life. Examining this tradition from its establishment by Socrates in the fifth century BCE through Plotinus in the third century CE and the eclipse of pagan philosophy by Christianity, Pursuits of Wisdom examines six central philosophies of living--Socratic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, and the Platonist life of late antiquity. The book describes the shared assumptions that allowed these thinkers to conceive of their philosophies as ways of life, as well as the distinctive ideas that led them to widely different conclusions about the best human life. Clearing up many common misperceptions and simplifications, Cooper explains in detail the Socratic devotion to philosophical discussion about human nature, human life, and human good; the Aristotelian focus on the true place of humans within the total system of the natural world; the Stoic commitment to dutifully accepting Zeus's plans; the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure through tranquil activities that exercise perception, thought, and feeling; the Skeptical eschewal of all critical reasoning in forming their beliefs; and, finally, the late Platonist emphasis on spiritual concerns and the eternal realm of Being. Pursuits of Wisdom is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding what the great philosophers of antiquity thought was the true purpose of philosophy--and of life.
This companion addresses a topic of continuing contemporary relevance, both cultural and literary. Offers both a wide-ranging exploration of the classical novel of antiquity and a wealth of close literary analysis Brings together the most up-to-date international scholarship on the ancient novel, including fresh new academic voices Includes focused chapters on individual classical authors, such as Petronius, Xenophon and Apuleius, as well as a wide-ranging thematic analysis Addresses perplexing questions concerning authorial expression and readership of the ancient novel form Provides an accomplished introduction to a genre with a rising profile
This volume in honour of John Morgan contains seventeen essays by colleagues, research students, and post-doctoral researchers who have worked with and been influenced by him during his 40 years in Swansea, up to and beyond his retirement in 2015. It is designed to reflect the esteem and affection in which the honorand is held, as teacher, supervisor, colleague, and friend. All the contributions reflect John Morgan's interests, with a particular focus on narrative, which has always been at the forefront of his teaching and research: he has elucidated the forms, structures, strategies, and functions of numerous ancient narratives, especially fictional, in a voluminous body of scholarship. The contributors consider a wide range of narratives, extending from those which show the influence of older stories on the beginnings of ancient Greek civilisation, through various narrative genres in different periods of antiquity, and up to later eras when the impact of Greek and Roman learning, stories, and ideas has been felt. The core of this volume contains discussions of narratives from the Roman imperial period, since this is the area to which the majority of John Morgan's work has been devoted and where his research has seen him become a world-leader in the study of the ancient Greek novel. Several of the contributions, at various stages of development, were delivered and discussed at gatherings organised under the aegis of KYKNOS, the Centre for Research on the Narrative Literatures of the Ancient World, which was established at Swansea in 2004 at John Morgan's initiative.
Questions about the origin of the Greek love novel, itself the precursor of the love novel in Europe, have intrigued scholars for centuries. Stefan Tilg proposes a new solution by arguing that Chariton of Aphrodisias was the inventor of the genre.
"This volume presents a collection of thirteen papers from the Fourth International Conference on the Ancient Novel (ICAN 2008), which was held in Lisbon at the Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian from July 21 to 26, 2008. The Ancient Novel and the Frontiers of Genre reflects entirely the spirit and the general theme of the Conference, and is intended to convey the idea that both the novel as a literary form and scholarship on the ancient novel tend to mature and advance by crossing boundaries that older forms regarded as uncrossable. The papers assembled in this volume include extended prose narratives of all kinds and thereby widen and enrich the scope of the novel's canon. The essays explore a wide variety of text, crossed genres, and hybrid forms, which transgress the frontiers of the so-called ancient novel, providing an excellent insight into different kinds of narrative prose in antiquity". (from the preface)
This book offers the first comprehensive evaluation of ethics in the ancient Greek novel, demonstrating how their representation of the cardinal virtue sophrosune positions these texts in their literary, philosophical and cultural contexts. Sophrosune encompasses the dispositions and psychological states of temperance, self-control, chastity, sanity and moderation. The Greek novels are the first examples of lengthy prose fiction in the Greek world, composed between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE. Each novel is concerned with a pair of beautiful, aristocratic lovers who undergo trials and tribulations, before a successful resolution is reached. Bird focuses on the extant examples of the genre (Chariton's Callirhoe, Xenophon of Ephesus' Ephesiaca, Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon and Heliodorus' Aethiopica), which all have the virtue of sophrosune at their heart. As each pair of lovers strives to retain their chastity in the face of adversity, and under extreme pressure from eros, it is essential to understand how this virtue is represented in the characters within each novel. Invited modes of reading also involve sophrosune, and the author provides an important exploration of how sophrosune in the reader is both encouraged and undermined by these works of fiction.
