Apuleius and Drama: The Ass on Stage

Regine May discusses the use of drama as an intertext in the work of the 2nd century Latin author Apuleius, who wrote the only complete extant Latin novel, the Metamorphoses, in which a young man is turned into a donkey by magic. Apuleius uses drama, especially comedy, as a basic underlying texture, and invites his readers to use their knowledge of contemporary drama in interpreting the fate of his protagonist and the often comic or tragic situations in which he finds himself. May employs a close study of the Latin text and detailed comparison with the corpus of dramatic texts from antiquity, as well as discussion of stock features of ancient drama, especially of comedy, in order to explain some features of the novel which have so far baffled Apuleian scholarship, including the enigmatic ending. All Latin and Greek has been translated into English.


Author: Regine May
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 02/08/2007
Pages: 396
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.61lbs
Size: 9.48h x 6.47w x 1.14d
ISBN: 9780199202928

About the Author

Regine May is Fellow and Tutor in Classical Languages and Literature at Merton College, University of Oxford.

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