The Romance of Antiquity

Catalog description

This course has three goals: to read in detail some texts from the Greek and Latin prose fiction or 'romance' genre; to gain insight into the ancient Mediterranean world(s) that produced them; and to think critically about the literary critical approaches by which we might read such texts. Our reading combines two of the 'famous five' Greek novels, namely Chariton's Callirhoe and Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, with the two main Latin novels, Petronius' Satyrica and Apuleius' Metamorphoses (a.k.a. Golden Ass). We'll end with Lucian's True History (a.k.a. True Story), antiquity's own critique of storytelling techniques; and the Alexander Romance, a fanciful but widely read prose account of Alexander the Great's expedition, which challenges many assumptions we might have about the nature of prose texts and how to read them. These six primary readings will be supplemented by others that support the second and third goals of our class.