Stavros A. Frangoulidis Livres

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.

Inspired by Theodore Papanghelis’ Propertius: A Hellenistic Poet on Love and Death (1987), this collective volume brings together seventeen contributions, written by an international team of experts, exploring the different ways in which Latin authors and some of their modern readers created narratives of life, love and death. Taken together the papers offer stimulating readings of Latin texts over many centuries, examined in a variety of genres and from various perspectives: poetics and authorial self-fashioning; intertextuality; fiction and ‘reality’; gender and queer studies; narratological readings; temporality and aesthetics; genre and meta-genre; structures of the narrative and transgression of boundaries on the ideological and the formalistic level; reception; meta-dramatic and feminist accounts-the female voice. Overall, the articles offer rich insights into the handling and development of these narratives from Classical Greece through Rome up to modern English poetry.

Roman plays have been well studied individually (even including fragmentary or spurious ones more recently). However, they have not always been placed into their ‘context’, though plays (just like items in other literary genres) benefit from being seen in context. This edited collection aims to address this issue: it includes 33 contributions by an international team of scholars, discussing single plays or Roman dramatic genres (including comedy, tragedy and praetexta, from both the Republican and imperial periods) in contexts such as the literary tradition, the relationship to works in other literary genres, the historical and social situation, the intellectual background or the later reception. Overall, they offer a rich panorama of the role of Roman drama or individual plays in Roman society and literary history. The insights gained thereby will be of relevance to everyone interested in Roman drama or literature more generally, comparative literature or drama and theatre studies. This contextual approach has the potential of changing the way in which Roman drama is viewed.

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.