Decoding the Ancient Novel (eBook)

The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius

Shadi Bartsch (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2014
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4008-6048-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Using a reader-oriented approach, Shadi Bartsch reconsiders the role of detailed descriptive accounts in the ancient Greek novels of Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius and in so doing offers a new view of the genre itself. Bartsch demonstrates that these passages, often misunderstood as mere ornamental devices, form in fact an integral part of the narrative proper, working to activate the audience's awareness of the play of meaning in the story. As the crucial elements in the evolution of a relationship in which the author arouses and then undermines the expectations of his readership, these passages provide the key to a better understanding and interpretation of these two most sophisticated of the ancient Greek romances.In many works of the Second Sophistic, descriptions of visual conveyors of meaning--artworks and dreams--signaled the presence of a deeper meaning. This meaning was revealed in the texts themselves through an interpretation furnished by the author. The two novels at hand, however, manipulate this convention of hermeneutic description by playing upon their readers' expectations and luring them into the trap of incorrect exegesis. Employed for different ends in the context of each work, this process has similar implications in both for the relationship between reader and author as it arises out of the former's involvement with the text.Originally published in 1989.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.7.2014
• Reihe/Serie: Princeton Legacy Library
• Reihe/Serie: Princeton Legacy Library
• Verlagsort: Princeton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Achilles Tatius • Aethiopica • Aetion • alexander romance • Allegory • ancient art • another woman • Apuleius • Art criticism • artemidorus • Attic Greek • B.C. (comic strip) • Cebes • Cian • coffin • Complicity (novel) • Criticism • Cupid • Daphnis and Chloe • decapitation • Description • Edition (book) • Erotes • eroticism • E's • evocation • Explanation • Exposition (narrative) • Fatalism • Fiction • foreshadowing • Genre • Gregory Nagy • Hamon (swordsmithing) • Handbook • Hellenistic period • Herodotus • Historiography • hyperbole • Illustration • Imagines (work by Philostratus) • In Death • interpretant • Irony • J. Hillis Miller • Lecture • Leucippe and Clitophon • Libanius • linguistic description • Literary criticism • Literature • loeb classical library • Lollianus • longus • love at first sight • Love Triangle • Moschus • Muse • Myrtilus • Mythology • narrative • N. (novella) • Novel • novelist • novella • of education • Oneirocritica • On Religion • Panel painting • Paperback • pelops • Persuasion (novel) • Philostratus • Pinax • Plot Device • Poet • Poetry • Precedent • Prediction • preface • Princeton University • Princeton University Press • Progymnasmata • Publication • Purple Prose • reader-response criticism • rhetoric • rhetorical device • Satyricon • Second Sophistic • self-justification • Sophistication • Suggestion • Tereus (play) • Thought • treatise • Trivium • Tyche • Writing • Xenophon of Ephesus
• ISBN-10: 1-4008-6048-2 / 1400860482
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4008-6048-7 / 9781400860487