Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel
Returning Romance

This book explores the popularity of the Greek romances during the Roman Empire and their contribution to understanding Greek identity.

Tim Whitmarsh (Author)

9780521823913, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 April 2011

312 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.63 kg

'A highly intelligent study that is indubitably the result of profound meditation on the texts … Anyone studying the history of the novel should take a look at Whitmarsh's book.' The Observer

The Greek romance was for the Roman period what epic was for the Archaic period or drama for the Classical: the central literary vehicle for articulating ideas about the relationship between self and community. This book offers a reading of the romance both as a distinctive narrative form (using a range of narrative theories) and as a paradigmatic expression of identity (social, sexual and cultural). At the same time it emphasises the elasticity of romance narrative and its ability to accommodate both conservative and transformative models of identity. This elasticity manifests itself partly in the variation in practice between different romancers, some of whom are traditionally Hellenocentric while others are more challenging. Ultimately, however, it is argued that it reflects a tension in all romance narrative, which characteristically balances centrifugal against centripetal dynamics. This book will interest classicists, historians of the novel and students of narrative theory.

Introduction
Part I. Returning Romance
1. First romances: Chariton and Xenophon
2. Transforming romance: Achilles Tatius and Longus
3. Hellenism at the edge: Heliodorus
Part II. Narrative and Identity: 4. Pothos
5. Telos
6. Limen
Conclusion
Appendix: the extant romances and the larger fragments.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]