Framing the Ass Literary Texture in Apuleius' Metamorphoses

Complementing Harrison's previous volume, Apuleius: A Latin Sophist, this book studies one of the few extant Latin novels from the Roman Empire, Apuleius' Metamorphoses or Golden Ass. Harrison shows that this work is one of remarkable literary complexity, playing off other classical forms, especially the related narrative form of the epic. The volume traces some of the history of the novel's criticism and offers a detailed analysis of its key sections and issues, demonstrating in detail the literary sophistication and complex intergeneric intertextuality which is the key feature of Apuleius' novel.

S.J.Harrison is Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Oxford. He is author of books on Vergil, Horace, and Apuleius, and of a range of pieces on classical reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Apuleian Contexts
1. Constructing Apuleius: The Emergence of a Literary Artist
2. The Poetics of Fiction: poetic influence on the language of Apuleius Metamorphoses
3. The Milesian Tales and the Roman Novel
4. The Speaking Book: The Prologue to Apuleius' Metamorphoses
5. Apuleius, Aelius Aristides, and Religious Autobiography
6. Parallel Cults? Religion and Narrative in Apuleius'NB MetamorphosesNBand Some Greek Novels
7. Narrative Subversion and Religious Satire in Metamorphoses XI
Novel and Epic
8. Some Odyssean Scenes in Apuleius' Metamorphoses
9. From Epic to Novel: Apuleius as Reader of Vergil
10. Some Epic Structures in Cupid and Psyche
11. Epic Extremities: Openings and Closures of Books in Apuleius Metamorphoses
12. Literary Topography in Apuleius Metamorphoses
13. Waves of Emotion: An Epic Metaphor in Apuleius Metamorphoses
14. Genre, Texture, and Narrative in the Adultery-Tales of Apuleius, Metamorphoses Book 9
15. Divine Authority in Cupid and Psyche: The Council of Gods at Apuleius Metamorphoses 6.23-4
16. Apuleius and Homer: Some Traces of the Iliad in the Metamorphoses