Discourse, knowledge, and power in Apuleius' Metamorphoses / Evelyn Adkins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adkins, Evelyn, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Apuleius. Metamorphoses.

Apuleius.

Direct discourse in literature.

Knowledge, Theory of, in literature.

Power (Social sciences) in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (291 pages)

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Summary:

In ancient Rome, where literacy was limited and speech was the main medium used to communicate status and identity face-to-face in daily life, an education in rhetoric was a valuable form of cultural capital and a key signifier of elite male identity. To lose the ability to speak would have caused one to be viewed as no longer elite, no longer a man, and perhaps even no longer human. We see such a fantasy horror story played out in the Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, written by Roman North African author, orator, and philosopher Apuleius of Madauros--the only novel in Latin to survive in its entirety from antiquity. In the novel's first-person narrative as well as its famous inset tales such as the Tale of Cupid and Psyche, the Metamorphoses is invested in questions of power and powerlessness, truth and knowledge, and communication and interpretation within the pluralistic but hierarchical world of the High Roman Empire (ca. 100-200 CE). Discourse, Knowledge, and Power presents a new approach to the Metamorphoses: it is the first in-depth investigation of the use of speech and discourse as tools of characterization in Apuleius' novel. It argues that discourse, broadly defined to include speech, silence, written text, and nonverbal communication, is the primary tool for negotiating identity, status, and power in the Metamorphoses. Although it takes as its starting point the role of discourse in the characterization of literary figures, it contends that the process we see in the Metamorphoses reflects the real world of the second century CE Roman Empire. Previous scholarship on Apuleius' novel has read it as either a literary puzzle or a source-text for social, philosophical, or religious history. In contrast, this book uses a framework of discourse analysis, an umbrella term for various methods of studying the social political functions of discourse, to bring Latin literary studies into dialogue with Roman rhetoric, social and cultural history, religion, and philosophy as well as approaches to language and power from the fields of sociology, linguistics, and linguistic anthropology. Discourse, Knowledge, and Power argues that a fictional account of a man who becomes an animal has much to tell us not only about ancient Roman society and culture, but also about the dynamics of human and gendered communication, the anxieties of the privileged, and their implications for swiftly shifting configurations of status and power whether in the second or twenty-first centuries.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction: Cultural and Discursive Contexts

Apuleius and the Metamorphoses

Language and Meaning in the Metamorphoses

Approaches to Discourse

Apuleius' Manipulation of Discourse in the Apology

This Book

Chapter 1. Discourse from the Margins

The Priests of the Syrian Goddess: Ancient Evidence

The Priests in the Metamorphoses and the Onos

The Bandits: Ancient Evidence

The Robbers' Rhetoric

The Bandits' Betrayal

Conclusion

Chapter 2. Elite Discourse

The Tale of Thelyphron

The Festival of Laughter

The Wise Physician

Markers of Truth

Chapter 3. Asinine Discourse

First Impressions

Lucius' First Master: Milo

Metamorphosis

Asinine Strategies of Communication

Chapter 4. Feminine Discourse

Byrrhena

Photis

The Corinthian Matron

Isis

Chapter 5. Silence

Curiosity, Garrulity, and Silence

Unheeded Warnings

Magical Initiation

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ass

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche

Silence and Revelation

Chapter 6. The Novel as Discourse

Models of Reading

The Prologue

The Asinine Narrator and the Characterized Fictive Reader

The Narrator's Control

The Epilogue

Conclusion: The Man from Madauros

Bibliography

Passages Cited

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-252) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

Other Format:

Print version: Adkins, Evelyn Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Apuleius' Metamorphoses

ISBN:

9780472220137