Abstract

Abstract This essay looks at the history of the novel, starting from the influential postwar critical insistence on the importance of the novel as a nineteenth-century genre. It notes that this tradition singularly fails to take account of the history of the novel in antiquity–for clear ideological reasons. It then explores the degree to which the texts known as the novel from antiquity, such as Longus's Daphnis and Chloe, Petronius's Satyricon, or Heliodorus's Aethiopica, constitute a genre. Although there is a great deal of porousness between different forms of prose in antiquity, the essay concludes by exploring why the ancient novel, ignored by critics for so long, has now become such a hot topic. It argues that much as the postwar critics could not fit the ancient novel into their histories, now the ancient novel's interests in sophisticated erotics, narrative flair, and cultural hybridity seem all too timely.

Highlights

  • There was a schoolmaster at my junior school who was feared for his violent and debilitating outbursts of temper

  • There is a great deal of porousness between different forms of prose in antiquity, the essay concludes by exploring why the ancient novel, ignored by critics for so long, has become such a hot topic

  • It argues that much as the postwar critics could not fit the ancient novel into their histories, the ancient novel’s interests in sophisticated erotics, narrative flair, and cultural hybridity seem all too timely

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Summary

Introduction

There was a schoolmaster at my junior school who was feared for his violent and debilitating outbursts of temper.

Results
Conclusion
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