Lectiones Scrupulosae. Essays on the Text and Interpretation of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses in Honour of Maaike Zimmerman (“Ancient Narrative”, Suppl. 6), Groningen, Barkhuis 2006 (original) (raw)

Awe and Opposition: The Ambivalent Presence of Lucretius in Apuleius' 'Metamorphoses

Ancient narrative, 2006

shared the admiration for Lucretius with elder contemporaries like Fronto and Gellius. While the enthusiasm of both Fronto and Gellius for the poet Lucretius was motivated by the search for surprising word choice and remarkable diction, Apuleius' reading of De Rerum Natura went deeper. His admiration of the sublime poetry of Lucretius is combined with a critical attitude towards the philosophical message of Lucretius' poem. As others have shown, many literary allusions to Lucretius in Apuleius' De deo Socratis occur in a context in which Apuleius is opposed to the philosophical message of the Epicurean poet. Allusions to Lucretius in Apuleius' Metamorphoses have not been studied systematically. In this essay some striking examples are presented. It is argued that in many of the numerous Lucretian allusions in his novel Apuleius often is engaged in a subtle discussion with the much admired poet. Maaike Zimmerman (emerita university teacher and researcher in classics a...

Transforming the Genre, Apuleius' Metamorphoses, Ancient Narrative Suppl. 8

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Duped by an ass: Revisiting the chronology of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

Ancient narrative, 2020

The most extensive study on the Metamorphoses has been conducted by the University of Groningen research group, led by Maaike Zimmerman. Since 1977, they have published a series entitled Groningen commentaries on Apuleius (GCA), which in its entirety covers every book of the novel. 1 Complementary to the commentaries are the collections of essays compiled in the three volumes of Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass (1978-2012). As anthologies they prioritize research which applies modern theories of narrative techniques, which had been lacking in previous Apuleian scholarship, noting in particular the disregard of narrative rhythm (1978, vii). A first response to this scholarly hiatus is Rudolph Th. van der Paardt's essay on Various aspects of narrative technique in Apuleius' Metamorphoses (1978, 75-94), featured in the collection. He dedicates a whole chapter to a discussion on rhythm, concluding that the mirroring rhythm of books 1 to 10 and book 11 supports a unified reading of the novel (87). Another study of Apuleian time that is due recognition is Mikhail Bakhtin's renowned essay Forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel ([1937]2006). Bakhtin introduces the term chronotope (literally 'time-space') which he defines as 'the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature' ([1937]2006, 84). He explains how the chronotope establishes the boundaries of events-what can and cannot happen-and consequently determines the field of representation within the narrative.

Transforming the Genre: Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

Ancient narrative, 2007

This paper compares the plot-line of Apuleius' Metamorphoses to that of the ideal novels. Comparison shows that Apuleius alters the dynamics of the typical romance plot by emphasizing Lucius' pursuit of slavish pleasures, and by introducing a model of marriage between a mortal and the divine. This change to the ‘ideal' structure is due to the religious end to the work. The validity of this reading is best confirmed by the mirror text of Cupid and Psyche , which is embedded in the center of the novel and more closely fol­lows the model structure of the ideal novels, as if the author wished to offer a key to interpreting the surrounding narrative. Stavros Frangoulidis is Associate Professor at the Department of Classics, University of Crete. He is the author of Roles and Performances in Apuleius' Metamorphoses and of Handlung und Nebenhandlung: Theater, Metatheater und Gattungsbewusstein in der romischen Komodie , both published by Metzler. He has also published extens...

ECHOES OF ROMAN SATIRE IN APULEIUS' METAMORPHOSES

Desultoria Scientia. genre in Apuleius' Metamorphoses and Related Textssts, 2006

The focus of this article is the relation of Apuleius' Metamorphoses with a group of texts, the genre of Roman Satire, rather than with particular passages or authors. Zimmerman concentrates on both the shared topics of Satire and the Metamorphoses and on the similarities in narrative voice. It is pointed out that satire and Apuleius' novel similarly treat a mixture of high and low genres, incorporating the low ones and often debunking the high. Both are hybrid, parasitic genres, exploiting and reforming other texts. Attention is drawn on both Satire and The Metamorphoses as "unauthorized texts" , with ambivalences in authorial voice, as well as the self-satire or self-ironizing persona of the narraor, which is a feature of many satires of Horace and Juvenal, but also of for instance Menippean satire, and becomes rather prominent in the metamorphoses of Apuleius. :