The construction of the real and the ideal in the ancient novel: ed. by Michael Paschalis

The present volume comprises thirteen of the papers delivered at RICAN 5, which was held in Rethymnon, Crete, on May 25-26,2009. The theme of the volume,'The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel,'allows the contributors the freedom to use their skills to examine the real and the ideal either individually or in conjunction or in interaction. The papers offer a wide and rich range of perspectives: a political reading of prose fiction in Late Period Egypt (Selden); the presence of robbers and murderers in ideal fiction (Dowden); the interaction between illusion and reality in novelistic ekphrasis (Zeitlin); divine loves as real precedents for human loves (Rosati); comical elements in Heliodorus'Aethiopika (Doody);myths as paradigms for the inexperienced lovers in the Greek novels (Létoublon); moral ideas in the Odyssey and the Greek novels in relation to moralizing interpretations of Homer (Montiglio); the reality of the basic plot of Callirhoe in the light of historical events and Aristotle's Poetics (Paschalis); the interaction between fictionality and reality in Daphnis and Chloe (Bowie); entrapment and insu fficient understanding of reality in the Satyrica (Labate); fantasy, physical and ideal landscapes in Apuleius'Metamorphoses (König); bridging the gap between Photis (real) and Isis (ideal) in Apuleius (Carver); the gendered aesthetics of the Greek novels viewed through the lens of the mimetic theory of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Whitmarsh). Cover......Page 1 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 The Political Economy of Roamnce in Late Period Egypt......Page 18 'But there is a difference in the end,,,': Brigands and Teleology in the Ancient Novel......Page 58 Landscapes and Portraits: Signs of the Uncanny and Illusions of the Real......Page 78 The Loves of the Gods: Literature as Construction of a Space of Pleasure......Page 106 Comedy in Heliodoros' Aithiopika......Page 122 Mythological Paradigms in the Greek Novels......Page 144 'His eyes stood as though of horn or steel': Odysseus' Fortitude and Moral Ideals in the Greek Novels......Page 164 The Basic Plot of Callirhoe: History, Myrh, and Aristotelian Poetics......Page 178 Caging Grasshoppers: Longus' Materials for Weaving 'Reality'......Page 196 Tarde, immo iam sero intellexi: The Real as a Puzzle in Petronius' Satyrica......Page 216 Landscape and Reality in Apuleius' Metamorphoses......Page 236 Between Photis and Isis: Fiction, Reality, and the Ideal in the Golden Ass of Apuleius......Page 260 The Erotics of mimesis: Gendered Aethetics in Greek Theory and Fiction......Page 292 Abstracts......Page 310 Contributors......Page 318 Indices......Page 322