Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance (Greek Culture in the Roman World)

"The Greek romance was for the Roman period what epic was for the Archaic period or drama for the Classical: the central literary vehicle for articulating ideas about the relationship between self and community. This book offers a fresh reading of the romance both as a distinctive narrative form (using a range of narrative theories) and as a paradigmatic expression of identity (social, sexual and cultural). At the same time it emphasises the elasticity of romance narrative and its ability to accommodate both conservative and transformative models of identity. This elasticity manifests itself partly in the variation in practice between different romancers, some of whom are traditionally Hellenocentric while others are more challenging. Ultimately, however, it is argued that it reflects a tension in all romance narrative, which characteristically balances centrifugal against centripetal dynamics. This book will interest classicists, historians of the novel and students of narrative theory"-- Provided by publisher Half-title 3 Series-title 4 Title 5 Copyright 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Preface 11 Abbreviations 13 Introduction 15 True romance 15 Inventing romance 19 Returning romance 26 Re-turning romance 30 Part I: Returning romance 37 Chapter 1 First romances: Chariton and Xenophon 39 Social crisis 46 Beginning, middle, end 54 Symbolic geography 1: xenophon 59 Symbolic geography 2: chariton 64 Healing the rift 72 Closing the case 74 Chapter 2 Transforming romance: Achilles Tatius and Longus 83 Contexts 85 Hellenism decentred 87 Culturally speaking 91 Problematising narration 99 Corrupt narration 103 Art and interpretation 107 Transforming narrative 114 Chapter 3 Hellenism at the edge: Heliodorus 122 Mythic paradigms: centre and periphery 126 Reforming narrative 131 Nilotic narrativity 133 Identity fictions 139 Allegory and metalepsis 143 Part II: Narrative and identity 151 Chapter 4 Pothos 153 Desire, ethics, narrative 155 Desire and romantic norms: chariton and xenophon 159 Sexual telos and social serendipity: achilles and longus 162 Chaste desire 164 Desire and the other 169 (i) Deviant desire 171 (ii) The pederastic 173 (iii) The viable alternative 177 Readerly desire 182 Chapter 5 Telos 191 Open and closed cases 194 Curiosity and closure 199 Godlike narrators and predictive texting 205 Paradigm and syntagm 218 Chapter 6 Limen 228 The exiled subject 234 Despondency, tragedy, suicide 237 The wandering narrative 246 Episode and digression 249 Leucippe and clitophon: deviant digression 256 Outrageous fortune 260 Conclusion 267 Appendix: The extant romances and the larger fragments 275 References 279 Index 309 9780521823913 Cambridge University Press "The Greek romance was for the Roman period what epic was for the Archaic period or drama for the Classical: the central literary vehicle for articulating ideas about the relationship between self and community. This book offers a fresh reading of the romance both as a distinctive narrative form (using a range of narrative theories) and as a paradigmatic expression of identity (social, sexual and cultural). At the same time it emphasises the elasticity of romance narrative and its ability to accommodate both conservative and transformative models of identity. This elasticity manifests itself partly in the variation in practice between different romancers, some of whom are traditionally Hellenocentric while others are more challenging. Ultimately, however, it is argued that it reflects a tension in all romance narrative, which characteristically balances centrifugal against centripetal dynamics. This book will interest classicists, historians of the novel and students of narrative theory"-- Résumé de l'éditeur The Greek romance was for the Roman period what epic was for the Archaic period or drama for the Classical: the central literary vehicle for articulating ideas about the relationship between self and community. This book offers a reading of the romance both as a distinctive narrative form (using a range of narrative theories) and as a paradigmatic expression of identity (social, sexual and cultural). At the same time it emphasises the elasticity of romance narrative and its ability to accommodate both conservative and transformative models of identity. This elasticity manifests itself partly in the variation in practice between different romancers, some of whom are traditionally Hellenocentric while others are more challenging. Ultimately, however, it is argued that it reflects a tension in all romance narrative, which characteristically balances centrifugal against centripetal dynamics. This book will interest classicists, historians of the novel and students of narrative theory. - Contracubierta Romance was the dominant Greek literary genre of the Roman Empire. This book explores its distinctive qualities and the reasons for its popularity. Using cultural and narrative theory, it argues that the romance was simultaneously primal and malleable enough to capture the tensions in Greek identity during this era.