Hermeneutic Recollections: Apuleius’ Use of Platonic Myth in the Metamorphoses

Abstract

In this article, I argue that Apuleius alludes to two Platonic images from the Phaedrus and the Republic at the beginning and the end of the Metamorphoses. I demonstrate how Apuleius adopts particular elements of these scenes, but skews his Platonic model to ironic and philosophical effect. The function of such parodic appropriation, however, is not merely parody, but rather teaches readers a new way of reading Plato, i.e., as a complex, generically hybrid text rather than a storehouse of philosophical doctrines.