Crossings between fable and novel: some examples from Phaedrus and Apuleius, in U. Gärtner, L. Spielhofer (eds.), Ancient Fables and Literary Genres: Texts, Contexts, Interactions. Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes, De Gruyter, Berlin 2024 (forthcoming). (original) (raw)

Abstract

Among all the ancient novels, the animal fable has a privileged relationship with the story of Lucius, whose metamorphosis into an ass subjects him to a fate of hunger, beatings, and un-bearable labours, just as often happens to the donkeys of fable. This paper focuses on Phae-drus’ version of the Aesopic fable and on Apuleius’ version of Lucius’ story: thanks to their poetics and thematic uarietas, they lend themselves to interesting intertextual parallels. First of all, the two Latin authors share the decision to rewrite a Greek original for a public of Roman language and culture, and both engage in a meaningful metaliterary dialogue with the reader. For this reason, we start from the analogies between the programmatic discourses with which, in a self-ironizing manner, both Phaedrus and Apuleius present to the reader humble and en-tertaining fabulae (which, however, conceal a deeper meaning); then we examine a series of thematic and linguistic convergences between their works (see esp. Phaed. 5.1 Z. (=4.1 G.) / Apul. Met. 8.24–26; Phaed. app. 8 Z. [=app. 10 G.] / Apul. Met. 9.9–10; Phaed. app. 14 Z. (=app. 16 G.) / Apul. Met. 6.28; 7.13; 9.39). The elements we point out are not meant to demonstrate Apuleius’ direct dependence on Phaedrus; rather, they constitute a significant tes-timony, in the Latin context, of osmosis between fable and novel, both of which are traditionally low and popular genres.

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