Apuleius and Drama


Book Description

An exploration of the use of drama as an intertext in the work of the 2nd century Latin author Apuleius, who wrote the only complete extant Latin novel, the Metamorphoses, in which a young man is turned into a donkey by magic. All Latin and Greek is translated into English.




Apuleius and Drama


Book Description

Regine May discusses the use of drama as an intertext in the work of the 2nd century Latin author Apuleius, who wrote the only complete extant Latin novel, the Metamorphoses, in which a young man is turned into a donkey by magic. Apuleius uses drama, especially comedy, as a basic underlying texture, and invites his readers to use their knowledge of contemporary drama in interpreting the fate of his protagonist and the often comic or tragic situations in which he finds himself. May employs a close study of the Latin text and detailed comparison with the corpus of dramatic texts from antiquity, as well as discussion of stock features of ancient drama, especially of comedy, in order to explain some features of the novel which have so far baffled Apuleian scholarship, including the enigmatic ending. All Latin and Greek has been translated into English.




The Golden Ass


Book Description

Relihan uses alliteration and assonance, rhythm and rhyme, the occasional archaism, the rare neologism, and devices of punctuation and typography, to create a sparkling, luxurious, and readable translation that reproduces something of the linguistic and comic effects of the original Latin. The general Introduction is a masterpiece of clarity, orienting the reader in matters of authorship, narration, genre, religion, structure and style. A generous and browsable index, select bibliography, and maps are included.




A Comedy of Storytelling


Book Description

Current interpretations of Apuleius' 'Golden Ass' cover the entire spectrum from a religious autobiography to an incongruous collection of titillating stories. The goal of this book is to explain the extraordinary polyphony of Apuleius' novel as a product of the 2nd century CE context, in which elite culture (philosophy and sophistic oratory) and popular entertainment not only share the same venues and appeal to the same audiences but also engage in active exchange of subject matter and histrionic techniques. The book argues that Apuleius' narrative represents a mosaic of discourses each of which possesses a respectable pedigree in the world of Greco-Roman 'paideia'. It further traces the ensuing ambiguity to the Second Sophistic rhetoric and concludes that the particular thrill of reading the novel consists in the ironic frustration of any attempt to discover a centripetal force in an irreducibly multi-polar text.




Apuleius


Book Description

The love story of Cupid and Psyche, the powerful god of love and a human girl, has fascinated readers for centuries, ever since it was written by the Roman author Apuleius in the second century AD. The enchanting story can be read as both the origin of many classic fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella, and as a philosophical portrait of the search of the human soul for the divine.




The Untold Story of the Talking Book


Book Description

A history of audiobooks, from entertainment & rehabilitation for blinded World War I soldiers to a twenty-first-century competitive industry. Histories of the book often move straight from the codex to the digital screen. Left out of that familiar account are nearly 150 years of audio recordings. Recounting the fascinating history of audio-recorded literature, Matthew Rubery traces the path of innovation from Edison’s recitation of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” for his tinfoil phonograph in 1877, to the first novel-length talking books made for blinded World War I veterans, to today’s billion-dollar audiobook industry. The Untold Story of the Talking Book focuses on the social impact of audiobooks, not just the technological history, in telling a story of surprising and impassioned conflicts: from controversies over which books the Library of Congress selected to become talking books—yes to Kipling, no to Flaubert—to debates about what defines a reader. Delving into the vexed relationship between spoken and printed texts, Rubery argues that storytelling can be just as engaging with the ears as with the eyes, and that audiobooks deserve to be taken seriously. They are not mere derivatives of printed books but their own form of entertainment. We have come a long way from the era of sound recorded on wax cylinders, when people imagined one day hearing entire novels on mini-phonographs tucked inside their hats. Rubery tells the untold story of this incredible evolution and, in doing so, breaks from convention by treating audiobooks as a distinctively modern art form that has profoundly influenced the way we read. Praise for The Untold Story of the Talking Book “If audiobooks are relatively new to your world, you might wonder where they came from and where they’re going. And for general fans of the intersection of culture and technology, The Untold Story of the Talking Book is a fascinating read.” —Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times “[Rubery] explores 150 years of the audio format with an imminently accessible style, touching upon a wide range of interconnected topics . . . Through careful investigation of the co-development of formats within the publishing industry, Rubery shines a light on overlooked pioneers of audio . . . Rubery’s work succeeds in providing evidence to ‘move beyond the reductive debate’ on whether audiobooks really count as reading, and establishes the format’s rightful place in the literary family.” —Mary Burkey, Booklist (starred review)




The Drama of Everyday Life


Book Description

Psychologists, says the old joke, know everything there is to know about the college sophomore and the white rat. But what about the rest of us, older than the former, bigger than the latter, with lives more labyrinthine than either? In this ambitious book, Karl E. Scheibe aims to take psychology out of its rut and bring it into contact with the complex lives that most people quietly live. Drama, Scheibe reminds us, is no more confined to the theater than religion is to the church or education to the schoolroom. Accordingly, he brings to his reflection on psychology the drama of literature, poetry, philosophy, history, music, and theater. The essence of drama is transformation: the transformation of the quotidian world into something that commands interest and stimulates conversation. It is this dramatic transformation that Scheibe seeks in psychology as he pursues a series of suggestive questions, such as: Why is boredom the central motivational issue of our time? Why are eating and sex the biological foundations of all human dramas? Why is indifference a natural condition, caring a dramatic achievement? Why is schizophrenia disappearing? Why does gambling have cosmic significance? Writing with elegance and passion, Scheibe asks us to take note of the self-representation, performance, and scripts of the drama that is our everyday life. In doing so, he challenges our dispirited senses and awakens psychology to a new realm of dramatic possibility.




The Metamorphoses of Apuleius


Book Description

This book examines the comic and philosophical aspects of Apuleius' Metamorphoses, the ancient Roman novel also known as The Golden Ass. The tales that comprise the novel, long known for their bawdiness and wit, describe the adventures of Lucius, a man who is transformed into an ass. Carl Schlam argues that the work cannot be seen as purely comic or wholly serious; he says that the entertainment offered by the novel includes a vision of the possibilities of grace and salvation. Many critics have seen a discontinuity between the comedic aspects of the first ten tales and the more elevated account in the eleventh of the initiation of Lucius into the cult of Isis. But Schlam uncovers patterns of narrative and a thematic structure that give coherence to the adventures of Lucius and to the diversity of tales embedded in the principal narrative. Schlam sees a single seriocomic purpose pervading the narrative, which is marked by elements of burlesque as well as intimations of an ethical religious purpose. As Schlam points out, however, the world of second-century Rome cannot easily be divided into the sacred and the secular. Such neat distinctions were largely unknown in the ancient world, and Apuleius' tales are a part of a tradition, flowing from Homer, that addressed both religious and philosophical issues. Originally published in 1992. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.




Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings


Book Description

This book opens up a neglected chapter in the reception of Athenian drama, especially comedy; and it gives stage-centre to a particularly attractive and entertaining series of vase-paintings, which have been generally regarded as marginal curiosities. These are the so-called `phlyax vases', nearly all painted in the Greek cities of South Italy in the period 400 t0 360 BC. Up till now, they have been taken to reflect some kind of local folk-theatre, but Oliver Taplin, prompted especially by three that have only been published in the last twelve years, argues that most, if not all, reflect Athenian comedy of the sort represented by Aristophanes. This bold thesis opens up questions of the relation of tragedy as well as comedy to vase-painting, the cultural climate of the Greek cities in Italy, and the extent to which Athenians were aware of drama as a potential `export'. It also enriches appreciation of many key aspects of Aristophanic comedy: its metatheatre and self-reference, its use of stage-action and stage-props, its unabashed indecency, and its polarised relationship, even rivalry, with tragedy. The book has assembled thirty-six photographs of vase-paintings. Many are printed here for the first time outside specialist publications that are not readily accessible.




The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic


Book Description

The study of the Second Sophistic is a relative newcomer to the Anglophone field of classics, and much of what characterizes it temporally and culturally remains a matter of legitimate contestation. This Handbook offers a diversity of scholarly voices that attempt to define the state of this developing field. Included are chapters that offer practical guidance on the wide range of valuable textual materials that survive, many of which are useful or even core to inquiries of particularly current interest (e.g., gender studies, cultural history of the body, sociology of literary culture, history of education and intellectualism, history of religion, political theory, history of medicine, cultural linguistics, intersection of the classical traditions and early Christianity).