- Paperback: 835 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press; Reprint edition (Dec 5 1989)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0520043065
- ISBN-13: 978-0520043060
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 15 x 5.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#847,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #88 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics > Roman
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Product Description
Review
"This volume of translations has no English predecessor or foreign equal. . . . Reardon, having miraculously resurrected serious study of this oddly neglected literature, has organized the entire venture, written the general introuction, translated some texts, and edited all. -- Choice
Book Description
Prose fiction, although not always associated with classical antiquity, did in fact flourish in the early Roman Empire, not only in realistic Latin novels but also and indeed principally in the Greek ideal romance of love and adventure to which they are related. Popular in the Renaissance, these stories have been less familiar in later centuries. Translations of the Greek stories were not readily available in English before B.P. Reardon’s excellent volume.
Nine complete stories are included here as well as ten others, encompassing the whole range of classical themes: ideal romance, travel adventure, historical fiction, and comic parody. A new foreword by J.R. Morgan examines the enormous impact this groundbreaking collection has had on our understanding of classical thought and our concept of the novel. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Nine complete stories are included here as well as ten others, encompassing the whole range of classical themes: ideal romance, travel adventure, historical fiction, and comic parody. A new foreword by J.R. Morgan examines the enormous impact this groundbreaking collection has had on our understanding of classical thought and our concept of the novel. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Little known novels that everyone should know,
By Michael Kilianski (Richard Stockton College, NJ) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Paperback)
This was the required text for a Classical Novel course I took, and at first I felt as if I was going to be disappointed by the novels it contained because to me it seemed as if they were all romances with little substance, kind of like the modern pulp fiction novels that you buy at your local drugstore.However, after reading the first novel in the anthology, Chaereas and Callirhoe, I was hooked. These ancient novels are wonderful works of literature, written in a readable style that will grip anyone who reads them. I think also, that there is no better way to get in touch with Hellenistic history than to read a contemporary source.
4.0 out of 5 stars
these Greek romances strongly influenced the modern novel,
By Johanys (Korea) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Paperback)
This 800 page book contains all the extant Greek novels, or romances, that have made it to us out of antiquity. These romances are mostly in the line of boy meets girl, suffer shipwreck, are eventually reunited and discover they're rich. Like modern romances! Other of the romances are more historical, like the one about Alexander the Great. But great this particular romance is not. It's rather boring. My favorite in the book is Chariton, Chaereas and Callirhoe. Not exactly world famous these days. But of surprising invention and delight. More famous names are Heliodorus, An Ethiopean Story. Or Longus, Daphne and Chloe. Or Lucan, A True Story. If you're interested in expanding your idea of the novel, this would be a great place to spend a few weeks.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Remnants of a Genre,
By
This review is from: Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Paperback)
Prose fiction is the segment of Greek literature that has left the faintest impression on later ages, as is demonstrated by the fact that virtually all of its remnants fit within this thick but not unwieldy volume. The contents include nine complete tales, most of which we would call novellas, plus epitomes or fragments of ten more. None of them is famous today, though Lucian's "True Romance" is often cited as a precursor to science fiction and Heliodoros' "Ethiopian Story" was widely read through the 18th century.The core of the book consists of five "novels" - all from the 2nd century A.D., give or take a hundred or so years - that share enough conventions to be labeled a "genre". Their plots, in broadest outline, are identical: Boy and girl meet, fall in love, are married or about to be married, then are snatched apart by misfortune, faced with escalating threats to life and chastity, and finally reunited with virtue intact (hers anyway - his may wind up a bit tattered). Within this pattern, there is much variation. "An Ephesian Tale" is sheer melodrama, "Chaereas and Callirhoe" a loosely historical romance, "An Ethiopian Story" a skillful narrative that opens with a trompe l'oeil scene that would do credit to a contemporary novelist. Perhaps the most interesting to the modern reader is "Daphnis and Chloe", where the perils to the lovers are more psychological than physical and the story traces their love affair from the first stirrings of adolescent attraction through long-delayed consummation. Also present are works in other genres: a bawdy comedy ("The Ass", wrongly attributed in the Middle Ages to Lucian), a Munchausen-like travelogue (the authentic Lucian's "True Romance") and the faux historical "Alexander Romance", which shaped the later image of Alexander the Great as much as or more than did genuine history. The translations, all but one specially prepared for this volume, are readable and generally lively. Only one of translators (burdened with the rather hopeless "Leucippe and Clitophon", in which he labors to uncover deeply hidden virtues) feels compelled to preface his effort with a discourse on literary theory. The narratives gathered here are little-traveled paths in the terrain of classical literature and the reader may stumble now and then among the brambles, but the sights along the way are not without interest and charm.
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