Pater and Apuleius

Abstract

ONE OF the most memorable passages in the writings of Walter Pater, celebrated retelling in Marius the Epicurean of Apuleius' story of Cupid and Psyche, has been frequently dismissed, perhaps because of its memorability, as just another purple patch. Yet by devoting the fifth chapter of novel to an extended translation, Pater revealed a broad conception of the kind of materials that could be incorporated into a work of fiction and illustrated some of own theories of language and style. He also demonstrated how an author's sense of fact, his peculiar intuition of a world,' can pervade even the translation of an early Greek story; for version has many qualities quite distinct from the Latin original as well as from the famous rendering of 1566 by William Adlington.2 Pater early became interested in translation as a writing discipline when he was acquiring a literary style of own; biographers describe the daily exercises he set for himself in translation from Greek, Latin, and French authors, especially Flaubert and Sainte-Beuve. Apuleius' euphuistic work with its