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Shadow of an ass : philosophical choice and aesthetic experience in Apuleius' Metamorphoses / Jeffrey Ulrich.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Ulrich, Jeffrey P., author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Apuleius. Metamorphoses--Adaptations.
- Apuleius.
- Latin literature, Medieval and modern.
- Genre:
- Electronic books.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource ( pages)
- Place of Publication:
- Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2024.
- Summary:
- Jeffrey Ulrich's The Shadow of an Ass addresses fundamental questions about the reception and aesthetic experience of Apuleius' Metamorphoses, popularly known as The Golden Ass, by situating the novel in a contemporaneous literary and philosophical discourse emerging in the Second Sophistic. This unique Latin novel follows a man who is accidentally turned into a donkey because of his curiosity, viewing the world through a donkey's eyes until he is returned to human form by the Egyptian goddess Isis. In the end, he chooses to become a cult initiate and priest instead of a debased and overindulgent ass. On the one hand, the novel encourages readers to take pleasure in the narrator's experiences, as he relishes food, sex, and forbidden forms of knowledge. Simultaneously, it challenges readers to reconsider their participation in the story by exposing its donkey-narrator as a failed model of heroism and philosophical investigation. Ulrich interprets the Metamorphoses as a locus of philosophical inquiry, positioning the act of reading as a choice of how much to invest in this tale of pleasurable transformation and unanticipated conversion. The Shadow of an Ass further explores how Apuleius, as a North African philosopher translating an originally Greek novel into a Latin idiolect, transforms himself into an intermediary of Platonic philosophy for his Carthaginian audience.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-342) and indexes.
- Description based on information from the publisher.
- ISBN:
- 047213356X
- 9780472133567
- 9780472221929
- 0472221922
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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