The Protean Ass

A full account of the reception of the second-century prose fiction The Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses) of Apuleius, which has intrigued readers as diverse as St Augustine, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. Robert H. F. Carver traces readers' responses to the novel from the third to the seventeenth centuries.

A full account of the reception of the 2nd-century prose fiction The Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses) of Apuleius, which has intrigued readers as diverse as St Augustine, Petrarch Boccaccio, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. Robert H.F. Carver traces readers' responses to the novel from the 3rd to the 17th centuries.

This book examines the comic and philosophical aspects of Apuleius' Metamorphoses, the ancient Roman novel also known as The Golden Ass. The tales that comprise the novel, long known for their bawdiness and wit, describe the adventures of Lucius, a man who is transformed into an ass. Carl Schlam argues that the work cannot be seen as purely comic or wholly serious; he says that the entertainment offered by the novel includes a vision of the possibilities of grace and salvation. Many critics have seen a discontinuity between the comedic aspects of the first ten tales and the more elevated account in the eleventh of the initiation of Lucius into the cult of Isis. But Schlam uncovers patterns of narrative and a thematic structure that give coherence to the adventures of Lucius and to the diversity of tales embedded in the principal narrative. Schlam sees a single seriocomic purpose pervading the narrative, which is marked by elements of burlesque as well as intimations of an ethical religious purpose. As Schlam points out, however, the world of second-century Rome cannot easily be divided into the sacred and the secular. Such neat distinctions were largely unknown in the ancient world, and Apuleius' tales are a part of a tradition, flowing from Homer, that addressed both religious and philosophical issues. Originally published in 1992. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Curious about magic, Lucius accidentally transforms himself into an ass, which leads to a long train of events until the goddess Isis, restores him to human form. The tale includes 7 inset stories as well as Lucius' own adventures which begin when he is stolen, set to work as an ass by hard masters, beaten, and sent to die, rescued, and more.

Bryan Reardon (1928-2009) was one of the most important and influential figures in the revival of scholarly interest in the Greek novel and ancient fiction in the last quarter of the twentieth century. His organisation of the first International Conference on the Ancient Novel (ICAN) at Bangor, North Wales, in 1976 was a landmark in the field and an inspiration to the organisers of subsequent ICANs, from which Ancient Narrative itself sprang. As editor of Collected Ancient Greek Novels (University of California Press 1989; second edition 2008), he made the Greek novels accessible to a wider readership and won a place for them in university syllabuses across the English-speaking world. This volume contains twenty essays by leading scholars of ancient fiction, who were all pupils, colleagues or close friends of Bryan Reardon, in memory of his scholarship, energy, guidance and humanity. They cover a range of topics including ancient literary theory and the conceptualisation of fiction, discussion of individual novels (Chariton, Longus, Iamblichus, Achilles Tatius, and Apuleius) and novelistic texts (a papyrus fragment of a lost novel, and Philostratus' Life of Apollonius), the afterlife of the ancient novel (in a Renaissance commentary on Roman law, in a seventeenth-century essay on the origin of the novel, and in a seventeenth-century series of paintings in a French château), and a speculative reconstruction of the morning after the end of Heliodorus' novel. The title of the volume commemorates two of Bryan Reardon's most important books: Courants littéraires grecs des IIe et IIIe siècles après J.-C. (Paris 1971) and The Form of Greek Romance (Princeton 1991); and the photograph of Aphrodisias on the front cover is a tribute to his critical edition of Chariton (2004).

Apuleius of Madauros (c.AD 120-180), known to us today for his Latin fiction, the Metamorphoses, was also a Platonic philosopher. This book is the first exploration of his idiosyncratic brand of Platonism across his multifarious literary corpus, contributing to the study of the dynamic between literature and philosophy in antiquity.

Apuleius’ tale of Cupid and Psyche has been popular since it was first written in the second century CE as part of his Latin novel Metamorphoses. Often treated as a standalone text, Cupid and Psyche has given rise to treatments in the last 400 years as diverse as plays, masques, operas, poems, paintings and novels, with a range of diverse approaches to the text. Apuleius’ story of the love between the mortal princess Psyche (or “Soul”) and the god of Love has fascinated recipients as varied as Romantic poets, psychoanalysts, children’s books authors, neo-Platonist philosophers and Disney film producers. These readers themselves produced their own responses to and versions of the story. This volume is the first broad consideration of the reception of C&P in Europe since 1600 and an adventurous interdisciplinary undertaking. It is the first study to focus primarily on material in English, though it also ranges widely across literary genres in Italian, French and German, encompassing poetry, drama and opera as well as prose fiction and art history, studied by an international team of established and young scholars. Detailed studies of single works and of whole genres make this book relevant for students of Classics, English, Art History, opera and modern film.

A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology presents a collection of essays that explore a wide variety of aspects of Greek and Roman myths and their critical reception from antiquity to the present day. Reveals the importance of mythography to the survival, dissemination, and popularization of classical myth from the ancient world to the present day Features chronologically organized essays that address different sets of myths that were important in each historical era, along with their thematic relevance Features chronologically organized essays that address different sets of myths that were important in each historical era, along with their thematic relevance Offers a series of carefully selected in-depth readings, including both popular and less well-known examples

The Fifth International Conference on the Ancient Novel, which was held in Houston, Texas, in the fall of 2015, brought together scholars and students of the ancient novel from all over the world in order to share new and significant developments about this fascinating field of study and its important place in the field of Classical Studies. The essays contained in these two volumes are clear evidence that the ancient novel has become a valuable part of the Classics canon and its scholarly attempts to understand the ancient Graeco-Roman world.