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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Fortunes of Apuleius and the "golden Ass": A Study in Transmission and Reception

The Fortunes of Apuleius and the "golden Ass": A Study in Transmission and Reception

Gaisser, Julia Haig

Hardcover

Series: Martin Classical Lectures, Book 18

PhilosophyLiterary Criticism

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0691131368
ISBN13: 9780691131368
Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr
Published: Jan 23 2008
Pages: 408
Weight: 1.50
Height: 1.20 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.30
Language: English

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.

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