The Heritage of the Ancient Greek Novel in France and Britain

Abstract

This chapter deals with late sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century French and English novels modeled directly or indirectly on ancient Greek prose fiction. It provides detailed accounts of the papyrus record, the ancient readership and, finally, the reception of the ancient Greek novel during the Byzantine period. Besides being charismatic teachers, Tissard and Aleandro ensured that the infrastructure to support the teaching of Greek in France was firmly in place. Arnyot's accomplishments as a pioneer in the formulation of the theory of the novel have a greater claim on our attention than his philological achievements. Ancient Greek novels, particularly that of Heliodorus, had already been discovered, studied, translated, plundered and adapted in France. Like the English language itself, English-language narrative fiction of the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries that displays traces of the ancient Greek novels tends to be an amalgam of various components. Keywords: ancient Greek novel; Byzantine period; English language