The Narrative Material of Apollonius of Tyre

The story of Apollonius of Tyre is one of the most widely spread tales of medieval Europe. No manuscript earlier than the tenth century exists, although the story is undoubtedly many centuries older, and the circumstances of the ultimate origin and authorship have been much disputed. Rohde, in his authoritative study of the Greek romances of the Alexandrine period, called attention to the parallels between the Apollonius story and Xenophon's romance of Antheia and Habrokomes,' and favored the assumption of a Greek Apollonius romance, now lost, of which the known Latin version was a translation or at least a free imitation. Other scholars have agreed substantially with this view.2 On the other hand, Elimar Klebs, who has made the most complete study of the Latin story in its numerous versions, not only insists that no certain indication of Greek origin is to be found in the Latin texts, but definitely places the romance among the works of the Roman sophists, Apuleius and Petronius, and dates it in the third century.3 No certain answer to this problem is attainable with the available evidence, and in any case the position of the story in relation to post-classical literature is a matter for classical philologists to settle.4 But much as the story's literary character has been studied and written about, the nature of its narrative material, and the relation of that material to the world's general stock of stories, has been entirely ignored. It is that aspect of the romance that I shall examine here.5

Art · Literature · Narrative · Byzantine Studies and History · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Linguistics and language evolution

• The Old English Apollonius of Tyre in the Light of Early Romance Tradition

  Mercedes Salvador Bello, Mercedes Salvador-Bello•English Studies•2012

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