Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius' MetamorphosesApuleius' wonderful Latin novel Metamorphoses, written in the second century C.E., was for a long time neglected. In recent years some have attempted to understand the Metamorphoses by applying contemporary critical theory to the work, without notable success. In Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius' "Metamorphoses" Nancy Shumate takes a new and profitable approach: she uses an epistemologically oriented model of religious conversion to study the experiences of the novel's central character, Lucius, who is turned into an ass and back again. Shumate draws on a wide range of literary and nonliterary representations of conversion in order to establish a useful theoretical framework. The Metamorphoses is exposed as a text anticipating later narratives in its concern with world-building, with the narrator's subjective reality, and with the invocation and critique of religious experience. Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius' "Metamorphoses" will be of interest to classicists and scholars of Silver Latin and of the increasingly popular ancient novel, as well as to students of psychology and the sociology of religious experience. Nancy Shumate is Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, Smith College. |
Contents
The Material World | 43 |
The Social World | 91 |
The Role of Disintegration in Crisis | 137 |
Copyright | |
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Actaeon actor Aeneid anhedonia anomy appears Apuleian Apuleius argue Aristomenes Augustine Augustine's Batson and Ventis behavior Berger Book 11 chapter character Charite cognitive structures Confessions constructed conventional conversion experience crisis and conversion critics cult cultural Cupid and Psyche curiosity Dante Dante's describes discourse discussion disintegration divine Divine Comedy ecphrasis ence episode epistemological fact false fictional Fotis genre gious Greek habit human involves Isis James kind knowledge literary Lucius magic Metamorphoses Mithras moral morphoses motif mystical narratives of conversion narrator Nock novel object pagan paradigm pattern perspective philosophical Photius Platonic preconversion problem psychological question reader reading reality realm religion religious conversion religious experience representation represents rience Risus Roquentin seems sense shift sion social sort spite structures of meaning studies suggests tale of Cupid Thelyphron things Thrasyllus tion tive Tlepolemus Tolstoy Tolstoy's tradition transcendent transformation true truth ultimately values vision Winkler world view