Latin Fiction: The Latin Novel in Context

256 Pages·2005·1.1 MB·English

by  Heinz Hofmann

LATIN FICTION
Latin Fiction presents a comprehensive and innovative study of the Roman novel. The
Latin novel is an area which has precipitated a great deal of study. However, the focus of
past attention has tended to centre on the novels of Petronius and Apuleius, whereas this
study redefines the limits of the Roman novel, setting it in a broader context.
Latin Fiction provides a chronological study of the Roman novel from the Classical
period to the Middle Ages, exploring the development of the novel and the continuity of
Latin culture. Among the texts considered are:
• Petronius, Satyrica and Cena Trimalchionis
• Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass) and the ‘Tale of Cupid and Psyche’
• The History of Apollonius King of Tyre
• The Trojan tales of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis
• The Latin Alexander
• Hagiographic fiction
• Medieval interpretations of Cupid and Psyche, Apollonius of Tyre and the Alexander
Romance.
Heinz Hofmann is Professor of Latin at the University of Tübingen. He is the co-editor,
with M.Zimmermann, of the Groningen Colloquia on the Novel.

LATIN FICTION
The Latin novel in context
Edited by
Heinz Hofmann

London and New York
First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York,
NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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© 1999 selection and editorial matter, Heinz Hofmann; individual contributions,
the contributors
The right of Heinz Hofmann to be identified as the Author of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Latin fiction: the Latin novel in
context/edited by Heinz Hofmann. p. cm. Companion vol. to: Greek fiction: the Greek novel in
context/ edited by J.R.Morgan and Richard Stoneman. Includes bibliographical references and
index. 1. Latin fiction—History and criticism. 2. Romances, Latin (Medieval and modern)—
History and criticism. 3. Literature and history—Rome. I. Hofmann, Heinz, 1944–. II. Greek
fiction. PA6091.L38 1999 873′.0109–dc21 98–37100 CIP
ISBN 0-203-47922-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-67360-3 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-415-14721-2 (Print Edition)
CONTENTS

Notes on contributors vii
Preface x

Introduction 1

HEINZ HOFMANN

18
PART 1 Petronius

1 Petronius and the Satyrica 19

GARETH SCHMELING
2 The Cena Trimalchionis 32

JOHN BODEL
3 The novella in Petronius 44

GRAHAM ANDERSON
4 Rereading the Arbiter: arbitrium and verse in the Satyrica and in 54
‘Petronius redivivus’
CATHERINE CONNORS

67
PART 2 Apuleius

5 Apuleius’ Golden Ass: from Miletus to Egypt 68

GERALD N.SANDY
6 The Metamorphoses of Apuleius and its Greek sources 87

HUGH J.MASON
7 Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: the inserted tales 96

NANCY SHUMATE
8 The Tale of Cupid and Psyche 107

GERALD N.SANDY

118
PART 3 Apollonius King of Tyre

9 The History of Apollonius King of Tyre 119

GARETH SCHMELING
130
PART 4 History and Romance, Saints and Martyrs

10 News from the past: Dictys and Dares on the Trojan War 131

STEFAN MERKLE
11 The Latin Alexander 141

RICHARD STONEMAN
12 Hagiographic fiction as entertainment 158
GERLINDE HUBER-REBENICH (TRANSLATED BY RICHARD
STONEMAN)

180
PART 5 The Heritage of Latin Fiction

13 Towards a history of the exegesis of Apuleius: the case of the ‘Tale of 181
Cupid and Psyche’
CLAUDIO MORESCHINI (TRANSLATED BY COCO STEVENSON)
14 Apollonius of Tyre in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 193

ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD
15 The medieval Alexander 201

RICHARD STONEMAN
16 The rediscovery of the Latin novels 214

ROBERT H.F.CARVER

Index 229
CONTRIBUTORS

Graham Anderson is Professor of Classics at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He
has published on the ancient novel and the literature of the Second Sophistic and is
author of Eros Sophistes: Ancient Novelists at Play (Chico, CA 1982), Ancient
Fiction: the Novel in the Graeco-Roman World (London 1984) and Philostratus:
Biography and Belles-Lettres in the Third Century A.D. (London 1986). Currently he
is engaged in a study of folk- and fairytales in antiquity.
Elizabeth Archibald is Associate Professor of English at the University of Victoria in
British Columbia, Canada. She has published on the reception of the Historia Apolloni
and on Renaissance literature and is the author of Apollonius of Tyre: Medieval and
Renaissance Themes and Variations (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 1991).
John Bodel is Professor of Classics at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. He has
published on Petronius and Roman literature and is author of Freedmen in the
‘Satyricon’ of Petronius (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1984). Currently he is at
work on a study of funerals and undertakers in the Roman world.
Robert H.F.Carver is Lecturer in Renaissance Literature in the Department of English
Studies at the University of Durham. He is currently completing a book on the
reception of Apuleius during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Catherine Connors is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Washington,
Seattle and the author of Petronius the Poet: Verse and Literary Tradition in the
Satyricon (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Heinz Hofmann was Professor of Latin at the University of Groningen (in the
Netherlands) between 1982 and 1993 where he was a member of the Research Group
on Apuleius and in 1986 inaugurated the meetings of the ‘Groningen Colloquia on the
Novel’. Since 1993 he has been Professor of Latin at the University of Tübingen
(Germany). He is editor of the Groningen Colloquia on the Novel (vol. 1 ff., 1988
ff.)—since vol. 7, 1996, together with M.Zimmerman—and published, among
numerous studies mainly on topics of late antiquity and Neo-Latin, also several
articles on Apuleius.
Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich is Professor of Latin literature of the Middle Ages and Neo-
Latin at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität of Jena. She has worked on the reception of
ancient novella motives and Ovid’s Metamorphoses and is author of Das Motiv der
‘Witwe von Ephesus’ in lateinischen Texten der Antike und des Mittelalters (Tübingen:
Gunter Narr, 1990).
Hugh J.Mason is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Coordinator in the Department
of Classics at the University of Toronto. He has published articles on Apuleius,
Longus and the history and topography of Lesbos. Other scholarly interests include the
Venetian composer Tommaso Albinoni and the modern Greek novelist Stratis
Myrivilis.
Stefan Merkle is Lecturer in the Department of Classics at the University of Munich. He
has published on Ovid and the Trojan narratives of late antiquity and is author of Die
‘Ephemeris belli Troiani’ des Diktys von Kreta (Frankfurt/M. etc.: Lang, 1989).
Currently he is completing a monograph on Phaedrus’ books of fables.
Claudio Moreschini is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Pisa. His
principal area of study has been Apuleius, including his philosophical works, as well
as Hermeticism and the philosophy of the Church Fathers. He is the author of Apuleio
il platonismo (Florence: S.Olschki, 1978), Apuleio, La magia (Milan: Rizzoli, 1990)
and Apuleio, La novela di Amore e Psiche (Padua: Editoriale Programma). He also
edited the critical edition of Apuleius, De philosophia libri for the Bibliotheca
Teubriesana (Leipzig, 1991).
Gerald N.Sandy is Professor of Classics at the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver and has specialized in the study of ancient Greek and Latin prose fiction
and of the classical heritage in France. He is author of a monograph on Heliodorus
(Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982) and of The Greek World of Apuleius: Apuleius and
the Second Sophistic (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
Gareth Schmeling is Distinguished Professor of Classics at the University of Florida at
Gainesville. He is author of several books on the ancient novel, among which are
monographs on Chariton (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1974) and Xenophon of
Ephesus (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980), and has compiled A Bibliography on
Petronius (Leiden: Brill, 1977); he made a critical edition of the Historia Apollonii
regis Tyri for the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (Leipzig, 1988) and is editor of The Novel
in the Ancient World (Leiden: Brill, 1996), and of The Petronian Society Newsletter
(1970 ff.).
Nancy Shumate is Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures at Smith
College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has published mainly on Apuleius and is
the author of Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan, 1996).
Richard Stoneman is a Senior Editor at Routledge and an Honorary Fellow of the
University of Exeter. He is the author of the Penguin translation of the Alexander
Romance, and is preparing a commentary on the Greek and Latin recensions of the
Alexander Romance for Mondadori.