Regine May

Stephen J. Harrison

Apuleius’ tale of Cupid and Psyche has been popular since it was first written in the second century CE as part of his Latin novel Metamorphoses. Often treated as a standalone text, Cupid and Psyche has given rise to treatments in the last 400 years as diverse as plays, masques, operas, poems, paintings and novels, with a range of diverse approaches to the text. Apuleius’ story of the love between the mortal princess Psyche (or “Soul”) and the god of Love has fascinated recipients as varied as Romantic poets, psychoanalysts, children’s books authors, neo-Platonist philosophers and Disney film producers. These readers themselves produced their own responses to and versions of the story. This volume is the first broad consideration of the reception of C&P in Europe since 1600 and an adventurous interdisciplinary undertaking. It is the first study to focus primarily on material in English, though it also ranges widely across literary genres in Italian, French and German, encompassing poetry, drama and opera as well as prose fiction and art history, studied by an international team of established and young scholars. Detailed studies of single works and of whole genres make this book relevant for students of Classics, English, Art History, opera and modern film.

The Reception of Apuleius’ Love Story since 1600

Cupid and Psyche

Gesine Manuwald

Stavros Frangoulidis

This volume takes a new approach to Roman drama by looking at comic and tragic plays from the Republican and imperial periods in ‘context’. By presenting a number of case studies and considerations of wider issues, the 33 international contributors explore the role of Roman drama in contexts such as the literary tradition, the relationship to works in other literary genres, the historical and social situation or the intellectual background.

Roman Drama and its Contexts

S. J. Harrison

This collection of essays by leading scholars argues that, in the contemporary context of the study and interpretation of classical literature at universities, traditional classical scholarship and modern theoretical ideas need to work with each other in the common task of the interpretation of texts, in order to ensure the survival and relevance of the study of classical literature in the twenty-first century.

Stephen J. Harrison

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