Chariton of Aphrodisias and the Invention of the Greek Love Novel
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:6th May '10
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The best known variety of the ancient novel - sometimes identified with the ancient novel tout court - is the Greek love novel. The question of its origins has intrigued scholars for centuries and has been the focus of a great deal of research. Stefan Tilg proposes a new solution to this ancient puzzle by arguing for a personal inventor of the genre, Chariton of Aphrodisias, who wrote the first Greek (and, with that, the first European) love novel, Narratives about Callirhoe, in the mid-first century AD. Tilg's conclusion is drawn on the basis of two converging lines of argument, one from literary history, another from Chariton's poetics, and will shed fresh light upon the reception of Latin literature in the Greek world.
Tilg has produced a fascinating and refreshing study of Chariton and the Greek love novel, utilizing a broad range of source material ... any classicist who has an interest in the Greek love novels will find Tilgs contribution invaluable, even if the reader is not well-acquainted with the Greek romances. When all the evidence presented in this well-researched, well-documented, and clearly written account is considered, Tilg successfully answers one of the most important questions about the invention and the inventor of the Greek love novel. * Katherine Panagakos, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
Tilg's book is courageous and challenging ... Tilg's book will be fundamental for scholars not only of the novel, but more generally of Greek literary history, for it tackles a central issue in ancient poetics * Silvia Montiglio, Ancient Narrative *
well researched, and the analysis takes into account a wide range of evidence, literary, historical and archaeological. Moreover, the argument is clearly presented and, despite the rather specialised subject matter of the book, translations of ancient citations will go a long way towards rendering the monograph accessible to the non-specialist. * Konstantin Doulamis, The Classical Review *
ISBN: 9780199576944
Dimensions: 224mm x 148mm x 27mm
Weight: 579g
356 pages