Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche

This edition, the first with a full commentary in English to appear for eighty years, comprises a Latin text with facing translation, an introduction and a commentary.

Apuleius (Author), E. J. Kenney (Edited by)

9780521278133, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 6 December 1990

256 pages
20.3 x 12.7 x 1.8 cm, 0.28 kg

"The entire work exhibits the precision and thoroughness that we expect in Kenney's scholarship....Kenney's Cupid and Psyche is a virtuosic performance and marks an auspicious beginning to the new Imperial Library from Cambridge University Press." James R. Bradley, New England Classical Journal and Newsletter

Apuleius' story of Cupid and Psyche, the relationship of the human Soul with divine Love, is one of the great allegories of world literature. It forms an integral part of and profoundly illuminates the message of his novel Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, which relates the adventures of a young man and his spiritual fall and redemption. To enrich and deepen his basic plot, the origins of which are obscure, Apuleius has combined poetic sources, Platonic philosophy and popular iconography in an unprecedented tour de force of literary creation. This edition sensitively elucidates the subtle art with which this transformation has been accomplished, and comprehensively illustrates both Apuleius' inventive handling of his various models and sources and the exuberant and idiosyncratic Latinity with forms the vehicle for it. It places in a fresh light the results of recent work on the ancient Novel and on Apuleius himself, and offers a stimulating, occasionally provocative, reading of his much-discussed text. The Latin is accompanied by a facing English translation, making the edition more accessible to students of comparative literature as well as to classicists.

Preface
Abbreviations and references
Introduction
1. The author
2. The book
3. The 'meaning' of the Metamorphoses
4. The story of Cupid and Psyche
5. Style and language
6. The text
Commentary
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Literary essays [DNF]