Characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

Characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses PDF Author: Stephen Harrison
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443884006
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This is the first volume dedicated to the topic of characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, the Latin novel from the second century CE. The subject has not been ignored in recent scholarship on individual characters in the work, but the lack of an earlier general overview of the topic reflects the general history of scholarship on the Metamorphoses. Literature on Apuleius’ novel until the 1960s centred around the issue of his general literary quality, and some key scholars held distinctly low estimates of Apuleius’ talents. Since 1970, most critics have seen Apuleius as a conscious and effective literary artist, and this is reflected in the emergence of this volume. The volume’s contributors are a distinguished collection of international scholars, many of whom have worked together on the long-established Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius, a project which is currently coming to completion. No ideological line has been imposed, and contributors have been free to offer their thoughts on how the text of the novel presents particular characters, including divine ones. The volume covers the whole of the novel and all the significant characters, and will constitute a substantial contribution to the interpretation of the most important Latin novel to survive complete from the ancient world.

Characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

Characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses PDF Author: Stephen Harrison
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443884006
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book

Book Description
This is the first volume dedicated to the topic of characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, the Latin novel from the second century CE. The subject has not been ignored in recent scholarship on individual characters in the work, but the lack of an earlier general overview of the topic reflects the general history of scholarship on the Metamorphoses. Literature on Apuleius’ novel until the 1960s centred around the issue of his general literary quality, and some key scholars held distinctly low estimates of Apuleius’ talents. Since 1970, most critics have seen Apuleius as a conscious and effective literary artist, and this is reflected in the emergence of this volume. The volume’s contributors are a distinguished collection of international scholars, many of whom have worked together on the long-established Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius, a project which is currently coming to completion. No ideological line has been imposed, and contributors have been free to offer their thoughts on how the text of the novel presents particular characters, including divine ones. The volume covers the whole of the novel and all the significant characters, and will constitute a substantial contribution to the interpretation of the most important Latin novel to survive complete from the ancient world.

Characterisation in Apuleius' Metamorphoses

Characterisation in Apuleius' Metamorphoses PDF Author: S. J. Harrison
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781443875332
Category : Characters and characteristics in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the first volume dedicated to the topic of characterisation in Apuleiusâ (TM) Metamorphoses, the Latin novel from the second century CE. The subject has not been ignored in recent scholarship on individual characters in the work, but the lack of an earlier general overview of the topic reflects the general history of scholarship on the Metamorphoses. Literature on Apuleiusâ (TM) novel until the 1960s centred around the issue of his general literary quality, and some key scholars held distinctly low estimates of Apuleiusâ (TM) talents. Since 1970, most critics have seen Apuleius as a conscious and effective literary artist, and this is reflected in the emergence of this volume. The volumeâ (TM)s contributors are a distinguished collection of international scholars, many of whom have worked together on the long-established Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius, a project which is currently coming to completion. No ideological line has been imposed, and contributors have been free to offer their thoughts on how the text of the novel presents particular characters, including divine ones. The volume covers the whole of the novel and all the significant characters, and will constitute a substantial contribution to the interpretation of the most important Latin novel to survive complete from the ancient world.

Witches, Isis and Narrative

Witches, Isis and Narrative PDF Author: Stavros Frangoulidis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110210037
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
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.

Apuleius' Invisible Ass

Apuleius' Invisible Ass PDF Author: Geoffrey C. Benson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108475558
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Argues that invisibility is a central motif in Apuleius' Metamorphoses, presenting a new interpretation of this Latin masterpiece.

Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses PDF Author: Evelyn Adkins
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472220136
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
In ancient Rome, where literacy was limited and speech was the main medium used to communicate status and identity face-to-face in daily life, an education in rhetoric was a valuable form of cultural capital and a key signifier of elite male identity. To lose the ability to speak would have caused one to be viewed as no longer elite, no longer a man, and perhaps even no longer human. We see such a fantasy horror story played out in the Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, written by Roman North African author, orator, and philosopher Apuleius of Madauros—the only novel in Latin to survive in its entirety from antiquity. In the novel’s first-person narrative as well as its famous inset tales such as the Tale of Cupid and Psyche, the Metamorphoses is invested in questions of power and powerlessness, truth and knowledge, and communication and interpretation within the pluralistic but hierarchical world of the High Roman Empire (ca. 100–200 CE). Discourse, Knowledge, and Power presents a new approach to the Metamorphoses: it is the first in-depth investigation of the use of speech and discourse as tools of characterization in Apuleius’ novel. It argues that discourse, broadly defined to include speech, silence, written text, and nonverbal communication, is the primary tool for negotiating identity, status, and power in the Metamorphoses. Although it takes as its starting point the role of discourse in the characterization of literary figures, it contends that the process we see in the Metamorphoses reflects the real world of the second century CE Roman Empire. Previous scholarship on Apuleius’ novel has read it as either a literary puzzle or a source-text for social, philosophical, or religious history. In contrast, this book uses a framework of discourse analysis, an umbrella term for various methods of studying the social political functions of discourse, to bring Latin literary studies into dialogue with Roman rhetoric, social and cultural history, religion, and philosophy as well as approaches to language and power from the fields of sociology, linguistics, and linguistic anthropology. Discourse, Knowledge, and Power argues that a fictional account of a man who becomes an animal has much to tell us not only about ancient Roman society and culture, but also about the dynamics of human and gendered communication, the anxieties of the privileged, and their implications for swiftly shifting configurations of status and power whether in the second or twenty-first centuries.

Apuleius and Drama

Apuleius and Drama PDF Author: Regine May
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0199202923
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Discussing the use of drama as an intertext in 2nd century Latin author Apuleius' novel, 'The Metamorphoses', in which a young man is turned into a donkey by magic, this book employs a study of the Latin text and comparison with the corpus of dramatic texts from antiquity.

Roles and performances in Apuleius' "Metamorphoses"

Roles and performances in Apuleius' Author: Stavros A. Frangoulidis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3476028410
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
In dieser Studie werden ausgewählte Episoden und längere Sequenzen aus Apuleius »Metamorphosen« aus der Perspektive des Greimas schen Diskursmodells analysiert. Die Begriffe »Rolle« und »Darstellungskunst« verweisen auf die theatralischen Züge der Erzählungen des Apuleius, die von Stilelementen der Komödie Gebrauch machen am auffälligsten der häufige Rollenwechsel der Hauptfiguren. Vorliegende Monographie vertritt die Auffassung, die Metamorphosen des Apuleius stellten eine Reihe von Variationen eines thematischen Basismodells dar. Ausgenommen von dieser Erzähltypik ist lediglich das Schlussbuch, in dem die Göttin Isis dem Lucius erlaubt, aus der Sphäre des Scheins in eine höhere Welt der Wesenheiten zu treten. In dieser höheren Welt gelten naturgemäß andere Gesetze als in der Welt flüchtiger Illusionen.

Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses PDF Author: Evelyn Adkins
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472133055
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
The first in-depth examination of speech and discourse as tools of characterization in Apuleius' Metamorphoses

Apuleius and Africa

Apuleius and Africa PDF Author: Benjamin Todd Lee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136254080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
The Metamorphoses or Golden Ass of Apuleius (ca. 170 CE) is a Latin novel written by a native of Madauros in Roman North Africa, roughly equal to modern Tunisia together with parts of Libya and Algeria. Apuleius’ novel is based on the model of a lost Greek novel; it narrates the adventures of a Greek character with a Roman name who spends the bulk of the novel transformed into an animal, traveling from Greece to Rome only to end his adventures in the capital city of the empire as a priest of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Apuleius’ Florida and Apology deal more explicitly with the African provenance and character of their author while also demonstrating his complex interaction with Greek, Roman, and local cultures. Apuleius’ philosophical works raise other questions about Greek vs. African and Roman cultural identity. Apuleius in Africa addresses the problem of this intricate complex of different identities and its connection to Apuleius’ literary production. It especially emphasizes Apuleius’ African heritage, a heritage that has for the most part been either downplayed or even deplored by previous scholarship. The contributors include philologists, historians, and experts in material culture; among them are some of the most respected scholars in their fields. The chapters give due attention to all elements of Apuleius’ oeuvre, and break new ground both on the interpretation of Apuleius’ literary production and on the culture of the Roman Empire in the second century. The volume also includes a modern, sub-Saharan contribution in which "Africa" mainly means Mediterranean Africa.

Metamorphosis of Language in Apuleius

Metamorphosis of Language in Apuleius PDF Author: Ellen D. Finkelpearl
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472108891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This book differs from previous studies in its scope, its insistence on a variety of approaches, its emphasis on the importance of genre, and its argument that the place of the literary tradition progresses through the book. This is the first attempt to link Apuleius' allusive practices with a consideration of the emergence of the novel and the consequent tensions in generic form. The chapters on Charite, the Phaedraesque stepmother, and Isis represent experimental new directions for the interpretation of Apuleius and literary influence.