Apuleius

Apuleius’ The Golden Ass and Juvenal’s Satires 3 and 4 use black humour as a leeway to express the seriousness of the situation through humiliation and dramatization in order to keep the audience entertained. Humour, especially black humour, which often involves a taste for the macabre, is used to make light of something that is considered serious or taboo. In The Golden Ass, black humour is used to illustrate Lucius’ trial where he is made a ridicule of in front of Hypata’s citizens for the festival of laughter enabling the audience to sympathize with him. Lamachus the bandit’s hand getting cut off in The Golden Ass is ironically humorous due to his intentions of robbery. In Juvenal’s Satires 3 and 4, Umbricius uses dramatization to ridicule…

Apuleius’ The Golden Ass is the only surviving novel of the second century Roman Empire. The Golden Ass can be interpreted to having many themes. In Apuleius’s Metamorphoses; politics, religion, and violence are conjoined, but can be analyzed into their own characteristics. Regardless of the novel being fiction, Apuleius purposely injects stories with meaning to be extracted for different understandings. These stories were written with comedic purposes to emphasize how often the crimes,…

I will be covering the various ways that magic, astrology and women play a significant role in ancient Roman culture using the novel, The Golden Ass to further develop my thesis. In the ancient Roman novel by Apuleius, is compiled of eleven short stories, each playing a significant role for Lucius own tale, as well as affecting both positively and negatively his journey. By covering such topics as magic, astrology and women I will be looking at the various ways that The Golden Ass depicts these…

and Apuleius, they all deal with the nature of daimons. There are some similarities between the three works, but the way they interpret the function and manifestation of daimons differs. The similarities between De Mysteriis by Iamblichus, De Genio Socratis by Plutarch, and De Deo Socratis by Apuleius is that they all deal with the personal daimon. The personal daimon was a daimon that was assigned to someone a birth and guided them to make the right decision. The great philosopher Socrates…

During ancient Rome women were to be good wives. Being a good wife includes loving one’s husband, being loyal and obedient, doing duties, and being chaste, while not desiring freedom or being critical. Apuleius presents female characters in his novel The Golden Ass that both contradict and coincide with the positive and negative models of women found in ancient sources. The story of Psyche and Cupid within the larger novel reinforces the positive traits such as obedience and loyalty. Within the…

Essentially, the term self is how one perceives themselves. Over the years, the meaning of self has been debated amongst ancient philosophers such as Lucretius and Apuleius. Some say self is the innermost sense of a person, some say self represents one’s relationship with others and some say that the self is in fact and illusion. In the ancient Hellenistic period, self have been presented in the poem “De Rerum Natura” by Lucretius, as well as the novel “the Golden Ass” by Apuleius. Additionally,…

There is nothing wrong with lusting after someone who is openly acknowledged as pretty. Even the elder goddesses in the Roman myth are not uneasy about their love, asking whether “it is no crime surely, to sleep with a pretty girl?” (Apuleius 125). The gods are fine with the superficiality of Cupid and Psyche’s relationship, suggesting the normality in their young love. In Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, Jack Zipes argues that fairy tales are a “literary discourse about mores, values, and…

There are only two accounted cases of the Lex Cornelia being used against magic practitioners, and only one ended in a prosecution (Dickie). This case happened in an African province and was concerned with Apuleius of Madaura using magic to seduce a rich widow (Dickie). While Dickie does not divulge much about the nature of the magic Apuleius used or its origin, it is possible that Apuleius was practicing African magic as he lived and hails from African provinces. The Lex Cornelia does not have…

(Evidence) Apuleius conveys that, after consulting the Oracle of Apollo regarding his daughter’s inability to find a suitor only to hear that he must offer her to a monster, “…the king returned home and made known the oracle to his wife. For many days she lamented, but at last… the company was made ready to conduct the maiden to her deadly bridal... the marriage hymn concludes in a sorrowful wailing: below her yellow wedding-veil the bride shook away her tears...” (Apuleius). (Explanation 1)…

therefore avoided. Humans being creatures of amenity, they do not tend to lean towards explanations which they do not fully understand or that favors concepts that do not give control to the self. In stories like Cupid and Psyche fate, which is linked to religion, is used to explain the concepts of this theory. “Psyche was not naturally either very strong or very brave, but the cruel power of fate made a virago of her” (Apuleius, 117). Yes, it is true that the outcome and all the actions would…