Apuleius' Metamorphoses: A Study in Roman Fiction

✍ Scribed by Stefan Tilg

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 203
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume reveals how Apuleius' Metamorphoses -- the only fully extant Roman novel and a classic of world literature -- works as a piece of literature, exploring its poetics and the way in which questions of production and reception are reflected in its text. Providing a roughly linear reading of key passages, the volume develops an original idea of Apuleius as an ambitious writer led by the literary tradition, rhetoric, and Platonism, and argues that he created what we could call a seriocomic 'philosophical novel' avant la lettre. The author focuses, in particular, on the ways in which Apuleius drew attention to his achievement and introduced the Greek ass story to Roman literature. Thus, the volume also sheds new light on the forms and the literary and intellectual potential of the genre of the ancient novel.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: A Study in Roman Fiction
Copyright
Preface
Contents
Abbreviations
Note to the Reader
1: The Model: Religious Metamorphoseis?
1.1. APULEIUS’ MODEL
1.2. METAMORPHOSEIS—ONOS—METAMORPHOSES: THE MAIN ISSUES
1.3. A RELIGIOUS ENDING?
1.4. CLUES FROM APULEIUS’ LIFE AND WORK
2: The Prologue: Loukios Goes to Rome
2.1. A LINK BETWEEN GREEK MODEL AND LATIN AUDIENCE
2.2. THE IDENTITY OF THE SPEAKER
2.3. THE POLITICS OF AT
2.4. LOUKIOS IN THE ROMAN FORUM
3: A Poetics in Tales: Milesian, Neoteric, Odyssean
3.1. TYING TALES TOGETHER
3.2. THE MILESIAN TALES
3.3. NEOTERIC CHARM
3.4. ODYSSEAN KNOWLEDGE
3.5. AND THE MORAL OF THE TALES?
4: A Philosophical Novel: Platonic Fiction
4.1. PHILOSOPHY IN THE METAMORPHOSES
4.2. THE ‘PHILOSOPHICAL NOVEL’
4.3. PHILOSOPHY IN THE ANCIENT NOVEL?
4.4. PLATONIC METAMORPHOSES
4.5. ON STRUCTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
5: The Isis Book: Serious Entertainment
5.1. AMBIGUOUS ISIS
5.2. SERIOUSNESS
5.3. COMEDY
5.4. CRITIQUE OF SERIOUS AND COMIC READINGS
5.5. PHILOSOPHICAL-RHETORICAL SERIOCOMEDY
6: The Epilogue: Autobiography and Author’s Biography
6.1. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EFFECTS
6.2. THE ‘ROMECOMING’
6.3. THE UNMASKED ‘ I ’
6.4. THE ROMAN INITIATIONS
6.5. SPHRAGIS
7: Is This the End? Closure and Playfulness in the Last Sentence
7.1. THE LAST SENTENCE
7.2. THE EVIDENCE FROM PALAEOGRAPHY AND TRANSMISSION
7.3. LONG AND SHORT MISSING ENDINGS
7.4. THE CLOSURE OF DEATH: OBIBAM
7.5. THE CLOSURE OF POLISHING: LUCIUS’ BALDNESS
8: Summary
References
Index Locorum
General Index