Decoding the Ancient Novel
The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9291610 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brigitte Egger |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 85 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 714-714 |
| Publication date | 1992-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | REVIEW |
| Review of | Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, Shadi Bartsch, 1989 |
| Venue | The Classical World (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-8418 • E-ISSN: 1558-9234 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/4351139 |
| OpenAlex | W2069980893 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 1 |
Using a reader-oriented approach, Shadi Bartsch reconsiders the role of detailed descriptive accounts in the ancient Greek novels of Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius and in so doing offers a new view of the genre itself. Bartsch demonstrates that these passages, often misunderstood as mere ornamental devices, form in fact an integral part of the narrative proper, working to activate the audience's awareness of the play of meaning in the story. As the crucial elements in the evolution of a relationship in which the author arouses and then undermines the expectations of his readership, these passages provide the key to a better understanding and interpretation of these two most sophisticated of the ancient Greek romances.In many works of the Second Sophistic, descriptions of visual conveyors of meaning--artworks and dreams--signaled the presence of a deeper meaning. This meaning was revealed in the texts themselves through an interpretation furnished by the author. The two novels at hand, however, manipulate this convention of hermeneutic description by playing upon their readers' expectations and luring them into the trap of incorrect exegesis. Employed for different ends in the context of each work, this process has similar implications in both for the relationship between reader and author as it arises out of the former's involvement with the text.Originally published in 1989.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905
Algorithm · Art · Decoding methods · Literature · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · Computer Science · History
Aesthetic Experiences, Ancient and Modern
Gender and Ethnicity in Heliodorus’ Aithiopika
Reading and the History of Race in the Renaissance
Reading Fiction with Lucian
Porphyry and ‘Neopythagorean’ Exegesis in Cave of the Nymphs and Elsewhere
The Art of Caesar's Bellum Civile
The Roman second century gate at Perge and its literary associations
Cnêmon, o injustiçado
Narrate and Describe
Additional Evidence of Semantic and Syntactic Sensitivity in the Septuagint
Scale, space and canon in ancient literary culture
Gesture and Gesturality in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus
The Bed Canopy in Xenophon of Ephesus and the Iconography of Mars and Venus Under the Empire
Contextualizing Quintus
Achilles Tatius and Chariton
The Eagle's Gaze in the Opening of Heliodorus' Aethiopica
Counterfeit in Character but Persuasive in Appearance”
Apples to Apples
Maculate Conception
Memory and Description in the Ancient Novel
The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies
Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novels
Apparitions Apparent
| Highly cited | No |
|---|