Relihan uses alliteration and assonance, rhythm and rhyme, the occasional archaism, the rare neologism, and devices of punctuation and typography, to create a sparkling, luxurious, and readable translation that reproduces something of the linguistic and comic effects of the original Latin. The general Introduction is a masterpiece of clarity, orienting the reader in matters of authorship, narration, genre, religion, structure and style. A generous and browsable index, select bibliography, and maps are included.
An anonymous Greek reworking (doubtfully attributed to Lucian) of the lost, anonymous Greek Metamorphoseis (falsely attributed to Lucius of Patras). An American translation by Joel C. Relihan (Professor of Classics, Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts), available as a free eBook from Hackett Publishing Company.
Is Cupid and Psyche a romance, a folktale, a Platonic allegory of the nature of the soul, a Jungian tale of individuation, or an archetypal dream? This volume provides Joel Relihan's lively translation of this best known section of Apuleius' Golden Ass, some useful and illustrative parallels, and an engaging discussion of what to make of this classic story.
Current interpretations of Apuleius' 'Golden Ass' cover the entire spectrum from a religious autobiography to an incongruous collection of titillating stories. The goal of this book is to explain the extraordinary polyphony of Apuleius' novel as a product of the 2nd century CE context, in which elite culture (philosophy and sophistic oratory) and popular entertainment not only share the same venues and appeal to the same audiences but also engage in active exchange of subject matter and histrionic techniques. The book argues that Apuleius' narrative represents a mosaic of discourses each of which possesses a respectable pedigree in the world of Greco-Roman 'paideia'. It further traces the ensuing ambiguity to the Second Sophistic rhetoric and concludes that the particular thrill of reading the novel consists in the ironic frustration of any attempt to discover a centripetal force in an irreducibly multi-polar text.
This is the first in-depth study of Apuleius' Metamorphoses to look at the different attitudes characters adopt towards magic as a key to deciphering the complex dynamics of the entire work. The variety of responses to magic is unveiled in the narrative as the protagonist Lucius encounters an assortment of characters, either in embedded tales or in the main plot. A contextualized approach illuminates Lucius' relatively good fortune when compared to other characters in the novel ‒ this results from his involvement with the magic of a sorcerer's apprentice, rather than that of a real witch, and signals the possibility of eventual salvation. A careful investigation of Lucius' attitude towards Isis in book 11 and his relationship with the witch-slave girl Photis earlier on suggests that the novel's final book may be read as a second "Metamorphoses", consciously rewritten from a positive perspective. Last but not least, the book also breaks new ground by examining the narrative structure of the Metamorphoses against the background of the typical plotline found in the ideal romance. The comparison shows how Apuleius both follows and alters this plot, exploiting the genre to his own specific ends, in keeping with his central theme of metamorphosis.
The aim of this book is to make Lucian's The Ass accessible to intermediate students of Ancient Greek. The running vocabulary and commentary are meant to provide everything necessary to read each page. The Ass is a great intermediate Greek text. The narrative is fast-paced and funny, and the language is fairly simple and easy to follow. Unlike its better-known Latin relative, Apuleius' Golden Ass, Lucian's The Ass is an unpretentious satirical text that tells a funny story in a casual and light-hearted manner. There is little moralizing or didacticism in the story, and unlike the hero of Apuleius's version of the story, there is no religious or philosophical illumination at the end. The final episode is a funny twist of events completely in tune with the tenor of the rest of the novel. There is a hilarious love-making episode with lots of double-entendre, and other episodes that portray the doings of various low-life characters who are rarely present in ancient literature at all. Thieves, religious charlatans, witches, millers, servants, soldiers and bakers all find a place in this strange story of chance and magic.
This collection of studies is the result of a series of seminars organised by COMERS in 1996. The theme of generic problems has led to a variety of disciplines (Ancient Oriental, Classical, Medieval, Arabic, Middle Dutch...), of textual types (fables, historiography, comedies, Canon law...) and a variety of approaches (case studies, theoretical studies, confrontations between 'native' and 'critical' schemes...). This collection may be useful for comparative purposes, but also as an incentive for further studies on generic problems, theoretical as well as topical.
Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - encountering a desperate gang of robbers and being forced to perform lewd 'human' tricks on stage - until the Goddess Isis finally breaks the spell and Lucius is initiated into her cult. Apuleius' enchanting story has inspired generations of writers such as Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Keats with its dazzling combination of allegory, satire, bawdiness and sheer exuberance, and remains the most continuously and accessibly amusing book to have survived from Classical antiquity.
This special issue of Ancient Narrative Supplementum 1, entitled 'Space in the Ancient Novel', brings together a collection of revised papers, originally presented at the International conference under the same title organized by the Department of Philology (Division of Classics) of the University of Crete and held in Rethymnon, on May 14-15, 2001. This conference inaugurated what is hoped to become a new series of biennial International meetings on the Ancient Novel (RICAN, Rethymnon International Conferences on the Ancient Novel) which aspires to continue the reputable tradition of the Groningen Colloquia on the Novel, established by Heinz Hofmann and Maaike Zimmerman. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 1 includes two additional contributions by Catherine Connors and Judith Perkins, both originally presented in ICAN 2000 at Groningen in July 25-30, 2000 and included here in revised form, and an article by Stelios Panayotakis, which closely relates to the theme of the Rethymnon conference.
This book traces the transmission and reception of one of the most influential novels in Western literature. The Golden Ass, the only ancient Roman novel to survive in its entirety, tells of a young man changed into an ass by magic and his bawdy adventures and narrow escapes before the goddess Isis changes him back again. Its centerpiece is the famous story of Cupid and Psyche. Julia Gaisser follows Apuleius' racy tale from antiquity through the sixteenth century, tracing its journey from roll to codex in fourth-century Rome, into the medieval library of Monte Cassino, into the hands of Italian humanists, into print, and, finally, over the Alps and into translation in Spanish, French, German, and English. She demonstrates that the novel's reception was linked with Apuleius' reputation as a philosopher and the persona he projected in his works. She relates Apuleius and the Golden Ass to a diverse cast of important literary and historical figures--including Augustine, Fulgentius, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Bessarion, Boiardo, and Beroaldo. Paying equal attention to the novel's transmission (how it survived) and its reception (how it was interpreted), she places the work in its many different historical contexts, examining its representation in art, literary imitation, allegory, scholarly commentary, and translation. The volume contains several appendixes, including an annotated list of the manuscripts of the Golden Ass. This book is based on the author's Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin College in 2000.
