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Search - Collected Ancient Greek Novels

Collected Ancient Greek Novels
Author: B. P. Reardon (Editor)

Prose fiction is the segment of Greek literature that has left the faintest impression on later ages, as is demonstrated by the fact that virtually all of its remnants fit within this thick but not unwieldy volume. The contents include nine complete tales, most of which we would call novellas, plus epitomes or fragments of ten more. None of them... more » is famous today, though Lucian's "True Romance" is often cited as a precursor to science fiction and Heliodoros' "Ethiopian Story" was widely read through the 18th century.

The core of the book consists of five "novels" - all from the 2nd century A.D., give or take a hundred or so years - that share enough conventions to be labeled a "genre". Their plots, in broadest outline, are identical: Boy and girl meet, fall in love, are married or about to be married, then are snatched apart by misfortune, faced with escalating threats to life and chastity, and finally reunited with virtue intact (hers anyway - his may wind up a bit tattered).

Within this pattern, there is much variation. "An Ephesian Tale" is sheer melodrama, "Chaereas and Callirhoe" a loosely historical romance, "An Ethiopian Story" a skillful narrative that opens with a trompe l'oeil scene that would do credit to a contemporary novelist. Perhaps the most interesting to the modern reader is "Daphnis and Chloe", where the perils to the lovers are more psychological than physical and the story traces their love affair from the first stirrings of adolescent attraction through long-delayed consummation.

Also present are works in other genres: a bawdy comedy ("The Ass", wrongly attributed in the Middle Ages to Lucian), a Munchausen-like travelogue (the authentic Lucian's "True Romance") and the faux historical "Alexander Romance", which shaped the later image of Alexander the Great as much as or more than did genuine history.

The translations, all but one specially prepared for this volume, are readable and generally lively. Only one of translators (burdened with the rather hopeless "Leucippe and Clitophon", in which he labors to uncover deeply hidden virtues) feels compelled to preface his effort with a discourse on literary theory.

The narratives gathered here are little-traveled paths in the terrain of classical literature and the reader may stumble now and then among the brambles, but the sights along the way are not without interest and charm.

ISBN-13: 9780520043060
ISBN-10: 0520043065
Publication Date: 12/5/1989
Pages: 835
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: University of California Press
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
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Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> Classics >> Roman
Literature & Fiction >> General >> Classics

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