Robert H. F. Carver
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199217861
- eISBN:
- 9780191712357
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217861.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the rediscovery of The Golden Ass. Evidence of first-hand acquaintance with The Golden Ass exists from the beginning of the trecento. By the middle of the 14th century, copies ...
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This chapter explores the rediscovery of The Golden Ass. Evidence of first-hand acquaintance with The Golden Ass exists from the beginning of the trecento. By the middle of the 14th century, copies are in the hands of the leading humanists Petrarch and Boccaccio. By the end of the century, Psyche has been re-enthroned in the Genealogia, and The Golden Ass is on its way to becoming part of the common property of the Italian Renaissance.Less
This chapter explores the rediscovery of The Golden Ass. Evidence of first-hand acquaintance with The Golden Ass exists from the beginning of the trecento. By the middle of the 14th century, copies are in the hands of the leading humanists Petrarch and Boccaccio. By the end of the century, Psyche has been re-enthroned in the Genealogia, and The Golden Ass is on its way to becoming part of the common property of the Italian Renaissance.
Robert H. F. Carver
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199217861
- eISBN:
- 9780191712357
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217861.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses Apuleian influences in The Faerie Queene. It argues that Spenser used different parts of The Golden Ass in various ways and with varying degrees of success. Meroë and Pamphile ...
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This chapter discusses Apuleian influences in The Faerie Queene. It argues that Spenser used different parts of The Golden Ass in various ways and with varying degrees of success. Meroë and Pamphile contributed to the pool of attributes from which Duessa and Acrasia emerged, and the combination of Homeric, Italian, and Apuleian elements was, by and large, an effective one. The account of Psyche's fall supplied a screen behind which Una could be clothed in the human colours that strict allegory would deny her, while Apuleius' description of her exile and her responses to trials and adversity provided a backdrop against which the virtues both of Una and Guyon could be measured. But it is when Spenser — in Muiopotmos as well as in The Faerie Queene — makes explicit reference to ‘Cupid and Psyche’ that the difficulties really begin.Less
This chapter discusses Apuleian influences in The Faerie Queene. It argues that Spenser used different parts of The Golden Ass in various ways and with varying degrees of success. Meroë and Pamphile contributed to the pool of attributes from which Duessa and Acrasia emerged, and the combination of Homeric, Italian, and Apuleian elements was, by and large, an effective one. The account of Psyche's fall supplied a screen behind which Una could be clothed in the human colours that strict allegory would deny her, while Apuleius' description of her exile and her responses to trials and adversity provided a backdrop against which the virtues both of Una and Guyon could be measured. But it is when Spenser — in Muiopotmos as well as in The Faerie Queene — makes explicit reference to ‘Cupid and Psyche’ that the difficulties really begin.
Porscha Fermanis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637805
- eISBN:
- 9780748652181
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637805.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
John Keats is generally considered to be the least intellectually sophisticated of all the major Romantic poets, but he was a more serious thinker than either his contemporaries or later scholars ...
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John Keats is generally considered to be the least intellectually sophisticated of all the major Romantic poets, but he was a more serious thinker than either his contemporaries or later scholars have acknowledged. This book provides a major reassessment of Keats' intellectual life by considering his engagement with a formidable body of eighteenth-century thought from the work of Voltaire, Robertson, and Gibbon to Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith. The book re-examines some of Keats' most important poems, including The Eve of St Agnes, Hyperion, Lamia, and Ode to Psyche, in the light of a range of Enlightenment ideas and contexts from literary history and cultural progress to anthropology, political economy, and moral philosophy. By demonstrating that the language and ideas of the Enlightenment played a key role in establishing his poetic agenda, Keats' poetry is shown to be less the expression of an intuitive young genius than the product of the cultural and intellectual contexts of his time. The book contributes to one of the most important current debates in literary scholarship — the understanding of the relationship between the Romantic period and the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century.Less
John Keats is generally considered to be the least intellectually sophisticated of all the major Romantic poets, but he was a more serious thinker than either his contemporaries or later scholars have acknowledged. This book provides a major reassessment of Keats' intellectual life by considering his engagement with a formidable body of eighteenth-century thought from the work of Voltaire, Robertson, and Gibbon to Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith. The book re-examines some of Keats' most important poems, including The Eve of St Agnes, Hyperion, Lamia, and Ode to Psyche, in the light of a range of Enlightenment ideas and contexts from literary history and cultural progress to anthropology, political economy, and moral philosophy. By demonstrating that the language and ideas of the Enlightenment played a key role in establishing his poetic agenda, Keats' poetry is shown to be less the expression of an intuitive young genius than the product of the cultural and intellectual contexts of his time. The book contributes to one of the most important current debates in literary scholarship — the understanding of the relationship between the Romantic period and the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century.
Richard Seaford (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474410991
- eISBN:
- 9781474426695
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474410991.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
This book focuses from various perspectives on the striking similarities (as well as the concomitant differences) between early Greek and early Indian thought. In both cultures there occurred at ...
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This book focuses from various perspectives on the striking similarities (as well as the concomitant differences) between early Greek and early Indian thought. In both cultures there occurred at about the same time the birth of 'philosophy', the idea of the universe as an intelligible order in which personal deity is (at most) marginal and the inner self is at the centre of attention. The similarities include a pentadic structure of narrative and cosmology, a basic conception of cosmic order or harmony, a close relationship between universe and inner self, techniques of soteriological inwardness and self-immortalisation, the selflessness of theory, envisaging the inner self as a chariot, the interiorisation of ritual, and ethicised reincarnation. Explanations for the similarites are a shared Indo-European origin, parallel socio-economic development, and influence in one direction or the other.Less
This book focuses from various perspectives on the striking similarities (as well as the concomitant differences) between early Greek and early Indian thought. In both cultures there occurred at about the same time the birth of 'philosophy', the idea of the universe as an intelligible order in which personal deity is (at most) marginal and the inner self is at the centre of attention. The similarities include a pentadic structure of narrative and cosmology, a basic conception of cosmic order or harmony, a close relationship between universe and inner self, techniques of soteriological inwardness and self-immortalisation, the selflessness of theory, envisaging the inner self as a chariot, the interiorisation of ritual, and ethicised reincarnation. Explanations for the similarites are a shared Indo-European origin, parallel socio-economic development, and influence in one direction or the other.
Porscha Fermanis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637805
- eISBN:
- 9780748652181
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637805.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter briefly extends the consideration of human understanding and the visionary imagination to Ode to Psyche and Ode on a Grecian Urn. It looks towards two arguments in relation to Ode to ...
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This chapter briefly extends the consideration of human understanding and the visionary imagination to Ode to Psyche and Ode on a Grecian Urn. It looks towards two arguments in relation to Ode to Psyche. It then tries to show that the idea of reverie is not primarily escapist, but rather has a longer intellectual history in Enlightenment understandings of the mind. The partial images of Ode on a Grecian Urn are only partial if they are expected to conform to an idea of truth that is prescriptive or instrumental in its orientation. Keats' reflections on truth and beauty in his letters, and his repeated emphasis on the revelatory nature of the imagination, point to the influence of Idealist thinkers; but in Ode to Psyche he follows empirical theories of perception in implying that sense data are basically copies of objects or ideas that can subsequently be recreated in the mind.Less
This chapter briefly extends the consideration of human understanding and the visionary imagination to Ode to Psyche and Ode on a Grecian Urn. It looks towards two arguments in relation to Ode to Psyche. It then tries to show that the idea of reverie is not primarily escapist, but rather has a longer intellectual history in Enlightenment understandings of the mind. The partial images of Ode on a Grecian Urn are only partial if they are expected to conform to an idea of truth that is prescriptive or instrumental in its orientation. Keats' reflections on truth and beauty in his letters, and his repeated emphasis on the revelatory nature of the imagination, point to the influence of Idealist thinkers; but in Ode to Psyche he follows empirical theories of perception in implying that sense data are basically copies of objects or ideas that can subsequently be recreated in the mind.
Christopher R. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801453694
- eISBN:
- 9780801455780
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801453694.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter examines how John Keats in his early poetry borrows the perceptual pattern that structures so many of William Wordsworth's poems: a state of inattention or dreaminess punctuated by a ...
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This chapter examines how John Keats in his early poetry borrows the perceptual pattern that structures so many of William Wordsworth's poems: a state of inattention or dreaminess punctuated by a sudden sound or “gleam.” The Keatsian surprise typically involves an unexpected thing that is somehow expected, an accessibility to novelty grounded in repetition and familiarity. In his poetry, Keats gave nuanced accounts of surprise: mixtures of the expected and the accidental, corporeal shock and cognitive reckoning, external stimulus and internal emotion, unknowing and recognition. This chapter also reads the “Ode to Psyche” and the “Ode on Melancholy,” both of which conceive of surprise—and emotion more generally—in mythological terms.Less
This chapter examines how John Keats in his early poetry borrows the perceptual pattern that structures so many of William Wordsworth's poems: a state of inattention or dreaminess punctuated by a sudden sound or “gleam.” The Keatsian surprise typically involves an unexpected thing that is somehow expected, an accessibility to novelty grounded in repetition and familiarity. In his poetry, Keats gave nuanced accounts of surprise: mixtures of the expected and the accidental, corporeal shock and cognitive reckoning, external stimulus and internal emotion, unknowing and recognition. This chapter also reads the “Ode to Psyche” and the “Ode on Melancholy,” both of which conceive of surprise—and emotion more generally—in mythological terms.
Armando Maggi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226242965
- eISBN:
- 9780226243016
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243016.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This book emphasizes that folk and fairy tales are meant to undergo constant transformations to the point of becoming unrecognizable. My book questions the received idea that classical tales such as ...
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This book emphasizes that folk and fairy tales are meant to undergo constant transformations to the point of becoming unrecognizable. My book questions the received idea that classical tales such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are eternal as Perrault or the Brothers Grimm told them. Challenging the traditional division between ‘oral’ and ‘literary’ tale, this book interprets ‘oral’ and ‘written’ in a new way. ‘Oral’ is a form of storytelling that is obscure, incomplete, disrespectful, and immoral, whereas ‘literary’ is what is told in a coherent and moral manner. This view of ‘oral’ versus ‘literary’ tale is already visible in Basile’s The Tale of Tales (1634), the first book of the Western tradition of literary fairy tales. Basile’s book is a literary product but reads like the transcription of a sequence of oral tales. In my analysis of The Tale of Tales, I identify in the myth of Cupid and Psyche a fundamental narrative that gave birth to innumerable other tales. The second part of this book examines how German Romanticism appropriated and interpreted Basile’s Italian collection of tales. My book examines how the Brothers Grimm and Clemens Brentano offered two very different adaptations of Basile’s book. The third part of the book deals with American post-modern interpretation of classical fairy tales.Less
This book emphasizes that folk and fairy tales are meant to undergo constant transformations to the point of becoming unrecognizable. My book questions the received idea that classical tales such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are eternal as Perrault or the Brothers Grimm told them. Challenging the traditional division between ‘oral’ and ‘literary’ tale, this book interprets ‘oral’ and ‘written’ in a new way. ‘Oral’ is a form of storytelling that is obscure, incomplete, disrespectful, and immoral, whereas ‘literary’ is what is told in a coherent and moral manner. This view of ‘oral’ versus ‘literary’ tale is already visible in Basile’s The Tale of Tales (1634), the first book of the Western tradition of literary fairy tales. Basile’s book is a literary product but reads like the transcription of a sequence of oral tales. In my analysis of The Tale of Tales, I identify in the myth of Cupid and Psyche a fundamental narrative that gave birth to innumerable other tales. The second part of this book examines how German Romanticism appropriated and interpreted Basile’s Italian collection of tales. My book examines how the Brothers Grimm and Clemens Brentano offered two very different adaptations of Basile’s book. The third part of the book deals with American post-modern interpretation of classical fairy tales.
Hyun Höchsmann
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474410991
- eISBN:
- 9781474426695
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474410991.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
This chapter compares the Rgveda, the early Upanishads, and Plato's Timaeus for their conception of the universe, the inner self, and the relation between them. All three texts envisage the universe ...
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This chapter compares the Rgveda, the early Upanishads, and Plato's Timaeus for their conception of the universe, the inner self, and the relation between them. All three texts envisage the universe as a hierarchically organised system in which order (rta in the Rgveda) prevails. But only in the Timaeus is there the motivation to create a cosmos endowed with beauty and goodness. Only in the Timaeus and the Upanishads is cosmology a prerequisite for self-knowledge and ethics, and both texts lay the foundations for moral realism, the belief in the objective validity of moral values.Less
This chapter compares the Rgveda, the early Upanishads, and Plato's Timaeus for their conception of the universe, the inner self, and the relation between them. All three texts envisage the universe as a hierarchically organised system in which order (rta in the Rgveda) prevails. But only in the Timaeus is there the motivation to create a cosmos endowed with beauty and goodness. Only in the Timaeus and the Upanishads is cosmology a prerequisite for self-knowledge and ethics, and both texts lay the foundations for moral realism, the belief in the objective validity of moral values.
Paolo Visigalli
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474410991
- eISBN:
- 9781474426695
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474410991.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
This chapter adapts Foucault's concept of technologies of the self to the production, by means of certain composite psychophysical practices, of a post-mortem immortal self. Such technologies of ...
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This chapter adapts Foucault's concept of technologies of the self to the production, by means of certain composite psychophysical practices, of a post-mortem immortal self. Such technologies of self-immortalisation are examined in the Plato's Timaeus (self-immortalisation through the practice of philosophy) and in the ritual construction of an immortal self (atman) in the construction of the Vedic fire altar (agnicayana). There are both similarities and differences between the Greek and Indian practices.Less
This chapter adapts Foucault's concept of technologies of the self to the production, by means of certain composite psychophysical practices, of a post-mortem immortal self. Such technologies of self-immortalisation are examined in the Plato's Timaeus (self-immortalisation through the practice of philosophy) and in the ritual construction of an immortal self (atman) in the construction of the Vedic fire altar (agnicayana). There are both similarities and differences between the Greek and Indian practices.
Armando Maggi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226242965
- eISBN:
- 9780226243016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243016.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter introduces Basile’s seminal The Tale of Tales, the first collection of literary fairy tales of the Western tradition. In particular, this chapter studies how the seventeenth-century ...
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This chapter introduces Basile’s seminal The Tale of Tales, the first collection of literary fairy tales of the Western tradition. In particular, this chapter studies how the seventeenth-century Italian author reinterprets the concepts of ‘oral’ and ‘written.’ Basile’s baroque tales read like transcriptions of oral storytelling although they are literary inventions. The main goal of this chapter is the analysis of Basile’s two retellings of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The myth of Cupid and Psyche is the first myth-fairy tale of the Western tradition and Basile’s book is the first collection of tales of modern Europe. After a brief survey of the medieval and Renaissance philosophical and theological interpretations of this myth, this chapter shows how Basile composes two opposite retellings of the Latin tale.Less
This chapter introduces Basile’s seminal The Tale of Tales, the first collection of literary fairy tales of the Western tradition. In particular, this chapter studies how the seventeenth-century Italian author reinterprets the concepts of ‘oral’ and ‘written.’ Basile’s baroque tales read like transcriptions of oral storytelling although they are literary inventions. The main goal of this chapter is the analysis of Basile’s two retellings of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The myth of Cupid and Psyche is the first myth-fairy tale of the Western tradition and Basile’s book is the first collection of tales of modern Europe. After a brief survey of the medieval and Renaissance philosophical and theological interpretations of this myth, this chapter shows how Basile composes two opposite retellings of the Latin tale.
Armando Maggi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226242965
- eISBN:
- 9780226243016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243016.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter examines the nineteenth-century collection of Sicilian folk tales collected by Laura Gonzenbach. In particular, it focuses on a tale that echoes Basile’s two versions of the Cupid and ...
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This chapter examines the nineteenth-century collection of Sicilian folk tales collected by Laura Gonzenbach. In particular, it focuses on a tale that echoes Basile’s two versions of the Cupid and Psyche myth. The close reading of the Gonzenbach version shows important differences between seventeenth-century Naples, where Basile wrote his book, and nineteenth-century Sicily. The oral Sicilian tale is more coherent and more moral than Basile’s literary tale. The image of the woman is more conventional in the oral tale than in the literary one.Less
This chapter examines the nineteenth-century collection of Sicilian folk tales collected by Laura Gonzenbach. In particular, it focuses on a tale that echoes Basile’s two versions of the Cupid and Psyche myth. The close reading of the Gonzenbach version shows important differences between seventeenth-century Naples, where Basile wrote his book, and nineteenth-century Sicily. The oral Sicilian tale is more coherent and more moral than Basile’s literary tale. The image of the woman is more conventional in the oral tale than in the literary one.
Armando Maggi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226242965
- eISBN:
- 9780226243016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243016.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter examines “The Myrtle,” one of the most famous tales from Basile’s collection. Although the myth of Cupid and Psyche is still the foundation of this tale, “The Myrtle” also heavily ...
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This chapter examines “The Myrtle,” one of the most famous tales from Basile’s collection. Although the myth of Cupid and Psyche is still the foundation of this tale, “The Myrtle” also heavily borrows from the Apollo and Daphne myth. The dialogue between the two mythic tales leads to a sequence of reversals in the figures of Cupid and Psyche.Less
This chapter examines “The Myrtle,” one of the most famous tales from Basile’s collection. Although the myth of Cupid and Psyche is still the foundation of this tale, “The Myrtle” also heavily borrows from the Apollo and Daphne myth. The dialogue between the two mythic tales leads to a sequence of reversals in the figures of Cupid and Psyche.
Armando Maggi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226242965
- eISBN:
- 9780226243016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243016.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter studies the Grimms’ summaries (also defined as adaptations) of Basile’s fifty tales in The Tale of Tales. In particular, this chapter focuses on the Grimms’ transformations of Basile’s ...
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This chapter studies the Grimms’ summaries (also defined as adaptations) of Basile’s fifty tales in The Tale of Tales. In particular, this chapter focuses on the Grimms’ transformations of Basile’s two versions of the Cupid and Psyche myth, the topic of the first chapter of this book. This chapter brings to the fore the subtle changes that the Grimms introduce in their adaptations in order to make the baroque Italian tales more moral and acceptable to a German sensibility.Less
This chapter studies the Grimms’ summaries (also defined as adaptations) of Basile’s fifty tales in The Tale of Tales. In particular, this chapter focuses on the Grimms’ transformations of Basile’s two versions of the Cupid and Psyche myth, the topic of the first chapter of this book. This chapter brings to the fore the subtle changes that the Grimms introduce in their adaptations in order to make the baroque Italian tales more moral and acceptable to a German sensibility.
Julia Kristeva
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265886
- eISBN:
- 9780823266951
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265886.003.0015
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
In this chapter, the author deploys a psychoanalytic hermeneutic to interpret the life of St. Teresa. The author develops three characteristics of Theresa’s thinking: the ideal father, the ...
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In this chapter, the author deploys a psychoanalytic hermeneutic to interpret the life of St. Teresa. The author develops three characteristics of Theresa’s thinking: the ideal father, the re-sexualization of the ideal father by the mystic (a pere-version), and the oral gratification of the Eucharist. Teresa’s “incarnated fantasies” of the ideal father who persecutes her are transformed into a loving father, expressed in a unique narrative in which Teresa becomes a “psyche-some” below the threshold of consciousness. These visions re-emphasize the denigrated senses, such as touch.Less
In this chapter, the author deploys a psychoanalytic hermeneutic to interpret the life of St. Teresa. The author develops three characteristics of Theresa’s thinking: the ideal father, the re-sexualization of the ideal father by the mystic (a pere-version), and the oral gratification of the Eucharist. Teresa’s “incarnated fantasies” of the ideal father who persecutes her are transformed into a loving father, expressed in a unique narrative in which Teresa becomes a “psyche-some” below the threshold of consciousness. These visions re-emphasize the denigrated senses, such as touch.
David Rollo
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226724614
- eISBN:
- 9780226724607
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226724607.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Early in the De nuptiis, Martianus states that Mercury selects Philology as bride only after discovering that a number of other young women are unavailable. One of them is Psyche, held in adamantine ...
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Early in the De nuptiis, Martianus states that Mercury selects Philology as bride only after discovering that a number of other young women are unavailable. One of them is Psyche, held in adamantine chains in the lair of Cupid. Mention of this allegorical figure for the human soul is accompanied by an account of the gifts she received from the gods at birth. Pallas gave her a cloak of wisdom, Apollo a wand of prophecy, Vulcan flames to light her way, and Remigius reads this reference to Venus bequeathing sexual desire to humanity in lapsarian terms, interpreting the goddess's gifts of voluptas and illecebra as the predisposition to carnal sin that was occasioned by the Fall.Less
Early in the De nuptiis, Martianus states that Mercury selects Philology as bride only after discovering that a number of other young women are unavailable. One of them is Psyche, held in adamantine chains in the lair of Cupid. Mention of this allegorical figure for the human soul is accompanied by an account of the gifts she received from the gods at birth. Pallas gave her a cloak of wisdom, Apollo a wand of prophecy, Vulcan flames to light her way, and Remigius reads this reference to Venus bequeathing sexual desire to humanity in lapsarian terms, interpreting the goddess's gifts of voluptas and illecebra as the predisposition to carnal sin that was occasioned by the Fall.
Stefan Tilg
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- June 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780198706830
- eISBN:
- 9780191778513
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198706830.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter studies the Platonic aspects of the Metamorphoses and applies the modern concept of the ‘philosophical novel’ to it. With the help of this critical tool, it presents a new reconciliation ...
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This chapter studies the Platonic aspects of the Metamorphoses and applies the modern concept of the ‘philosophical novel’ to it. With the help of this critical tool, it presents a new reconciliation between Platonism and entertainment, philosophy and fiction. In a preliminary section the concept of the ‘philosophical novel’ and its relevance for antiquity is discussed. After that, a survey of the philosophical potential of the ancient novel in general is given and the most important philosophical features of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses are considered at length. The long inserted story of Cupid and Psyche is crucial to this reading. The chapter finishes with a brief conclusion about how these features add up to a structurally significant whole beyond the simple polarity of the question ‘seriousness v. comedy’.Less
This chapter studies the Platonic aspects of the Metamorphoses and applies the modern concept of the ‘philosophical novel’ to it. With the help of this critical tool, it presents a new reconciliation between Platonism and entertainment, philosophy and fiction. In a preliminary section the concept of the ‘philosophical novel’ and its relevance for antiquity is discussed. After that, a survey of the philosophical potential of the ancient novel in general is given and the most important philosophical features of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses are considered at length. The long inserted story of Cupid and Psyche is crucial to this reading. The chapter finishes with a brief conclusion about how these features add up to a structurally significant whole beyond the simple polarity of the question ‘seriousness v. comedy’.
Barbara Rose Lange
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- July 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190245368
- eISBN:
- 9780190245399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190245368.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Chapter 3 discusses how the singer and writer Bea Palya explored dimensions of women’s experience in Hungary that had been kept private before the 2000s. The chapter describes one of Palya’s first ...
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Chapter 3 discusses how the singer and writer Bea Palya explored dimensions of women’s experience in Hungary that had been kept private before the 2000s. The chapter describes one of Palya’s first solo projects with composer Samu Gryllus, a setting of Sandor Weöres’s Psyché; Weöres’s postmodernist poetry collection explores sexuality, violence, and other facts of life for its female protagonist. The chapter describes how this project enabled Palya to connect autobiography and art, and details how Palya balanced a modern sexual image with other performances dramatizing Christian spirituality. Although Palya fused local folk sounds with Asian music, West Europeans wanted to emphasize the Romani part of Palya’s multiethnic background with a ragged Gypsy image. The chapter details how Palya was able to reject this pressure, since Hungarian audiences accepted her treatment of race as an everyday matter within a larger frame of modern feminine experience.Less
Chapter 3 discusses how the singer and writer Bea Palya explored dimensions of women’s experience in Hungary that had been kept private before the 2000s. The chapter describes one of Palya’s first solo projects with composer Samu Gryllus, a setting of Sandor Weöres’s Psyché; Weöres’s postmodernist poetry collection explores sexuality, violence, and other facts of life for its female protagonist. The chapter describes how this project enabled Palya to connect autobiography and art, and details how Palya balanced a modern sexual image with other performances dramatizing Christian spirituality. Although Palya fused local folk sounds with Asian music, West Europeans wanted to emphasize the Romani part of Palya’s multiethnic background with a ragged Gypsy image. The chapter details how Palya was able to reject this pressure, since Hungarian audiences accepted her treatment of race as an everyday matter within a larger frame of modern feminine experience.
Marcus Folch
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190610050
- eISBN:
- 9780190610081
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190610050.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Marcus Folch, in “A Time for Fantasy: Retelling Apuleius in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces,” focuses on the retelling of the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche (from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses) in what ...
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Marcus Folch, in “A Time for Fantasy: Retelling Apuleius in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces,” focuses on the retelling of the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche (from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses) in what Lewis regarded as his best book. Folch argues that Lewis, who is shown elsewhere to have been critical of ‘false medievalism’ in modern fantasy, offers a reflexive commentary in Till We Have Faces that problematizes the privileged position occupied by the medieval in fantasy’s evocations of space and time, deliberately contrasting the medieval with classical models. In this reading, Lewis’s imagined world changes from realistic to fantastic, becoming infused with supernatural presence, precisely when medieval structures are replaced by the classical. Folch suggests that Lewis refashions Apuleian myth in order to offer competing interpretations of the fantastic, produce hesitation in the reader, and thereby point to problems in how we read fantasy.Less
Marcus Folch, in “A Time for Fantasy: Retelling Apuleius in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces,” focuses on the retelling of the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche (from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses) in what Lewis regarded as his best book. Folch argues that Lewis, who is shown elsewhere to have been critical of ‘false medievalism’ in modern fantasy, offers a reflexive commentary in Till We Have Faces that problematizes the privileged position occupied by the medieval in fantasy’s evocations of space and time, deliberately contrasting the medieval with classical models. In this reading, Lewis’s imagined world changes from realistic to fantastic, becoming infused with supernatural presence, precisely when medieval structures are replaced by the classical. Folch suggests that Lewis refashions Apuleian myth in order to offer competing interpretations of the fantastic, produce hesitation in the reader, and thereby point to problems in how we read fantasy.
