Why are extant ancient Greek novels about testing idealized love between refined, aristocratic main characters in exotic timeless landscapes, whereas extant Latin novels such as Apuleius' Metamorphoses and Petronius' Satyricon portray vulgar, unrefined characters navigating lower-class roman milieus and are rather experimental?
>>25497959Because the Romans were based. Next question?
>>25497959Because the Romans were soulless decadent bugmen
>>25497959it's unfortunate that only the golden ass is preserved in its entirely when it comes to ancient roman prose fiction. i wish the satyricon was fully preserved too.
>>25497959Romans thought fiction was immoral because they didn't see a distinction between fiction and lying. Thus, only lowbrow Romans ever made or consumed any fiction. Greeks didn't have this hangup, so they were able to write highbrow fiction and drama.
>>25498062Based retards vs "cultured" effetes; I'll side with the former every time.
>>25497959I have only read Daphnis and Chloe and it was beautiful. My only hangup is that scene where Daphnis kills dozens of birds because he can't come up with an excuse to visit Chloe. Like, lmao.Has anyone read the other ones? Chariton's Callirhoe sounds completely unhinged.
>>25498110I've read Aethiopia by Heliodorus of Emesa. It's just like one of those retarded old school Hollywood blockbuster.
>>25498122I had no idea the greeks were inspired by marvelslop. Truly ahead of their time.
>>25497959>>25498110Daphnis and Chloe was written in year 200 and is influenced by Bible/ Christianity whereas Petronius is part of Pagan Roman culture and is a bawdy sex parody of Homer’s Odyssey (Encolpius and Priapus are roughly analogus to Odysseus vs Poseidon. There’s a scene in the book where Encolpius destroys a temple of Priapus though it is lost and only from fragments we put that scene together. The Fellini version of this scene where Priapus’ hermaphrodite priestess is murdered is an original creation of the director based on this.)
>>25498166>Daphnis and Chloe was written in year 200 and is influenced by Bible/ Christianitylollmao even
>>25498268Obviously there are Pan, Aphrodite and the nymphs in the story but the main duo are a Christian-like Adam and Eve couple amidst these deities rather than as pagans in celebration of the bawdy earthiness of their gods Ala Petronius. Also Pan in this story is more like a rustic spirit or something which aligns more with early Christian thought than like the actually sadistic/ amoral gods of Greece.> Art historian Theodore H. Feder advanced the argument that Longus integrated elements of Jewish and Christian scriptures into his pagan narrative.Rather than a direct theological "parable" meant to teach biblical doctrine, it is generally viewed by mainstream classicists as an example of early cross-cultural borrowing.Early Jewish and Christian stories had begun filtering into the broader cultural inventory of the Roman Empire by 200 AD. Most literary analysts still treat Daphnis and Chloe primarily as a classic Hellenistic romance celebrating youthful awakening, nature, and the god Eros rather than a strict religious allegory.
>>25497959Apuleius' Metamorphoses is based on a Greek novel to which Apuleius just added a middle-Platonic sauce. There is a different version simply called 'donkey' published by someone now called "Pseudo-Lucian" that leaves out some of the inserted tales and puts less emphasis on these Platonic elements. I think we simply do not have enough surviving Greek or Roman novels to definitively say anything about the differences between their literary cultures.
>>25498309>Apuleius' Metamorphoses is based on a Greek novel to which Apuleius just added a middle-Platonic sauce.That's just speculation
>Apuleius' MetamorphosesRobert Graves' translation flows well, but it is overly localised (why would you translate 'aedile' as 'inspector general of markets'?). Ruden's translation reads like shit. Which translation bros?
>>25498305>the main duo are a Christian-like Adam and Eve coupleAre you retarded? They have nothing in common with Adam and Eve other than the fact that they are a heterosexual couple.>Art historian Theodore H. Feder advanced the argument that Longus integrated elements of Jewish and Christian scripturesAh yes, the jewish expert says this beloved European artwork was actually influenced by jews. Truly a trustworthy source.
>>25498361Let me spell it out for you because you are simple. Genesis - Tree of knowledge/ City of Enoch/ Tower of Babel - is anti-technology and anti-advancement and it depicts the perfect world as two naked people in a garden with the tree of “knowledge” ie technology and cities and languahe as the catalyst for all evil to come. When it is boiled down, Longus’ book has the same theme and even the same basic set up of two clueless innocents trapped in a world of evil civilization. If you really can’t see echos of Genesis… literature isnt for you
>>25498361retard
>>25498309Apuleius’ work is a distinct remake in the same manner that Chaucer is a remake of Boccaccio and French Tabliaux yet also is doing his own thing too. The Platonist ideas are what makes the work important to scholars, not the story of a woman hiding her boyfriend in a jar.
>>25498101t. low class trash
>>25498366>let me just repeat what I just read from dubious sources while making up shit I clearly don't understand
>>25498396Genesis literally begins with a naked male and female in an idyllic pasture setting similar to the Lesbos of Longus’ divine work. Tree of knowledge and Tower of Babel? Even sodom and Gomorrah? Don’t they all seem kin to the Mitylene which is inhabited by homosexual pedophiles like Gnathon and Ascyltus, the aristocratic lord seeking his unwanted advances on Chloe? Cities and civilization being the home of sodomy and perversion is what ties the Bible to Longus’ work.
>>25498396I meant Lampis obv not Ascylt of Petronius
>>25498366It is always the case that interpretation of this type indicates a dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to replace it by something else.
>>25498405Thank you anon.Longus' pastoral romantic drama is now intelligible: it's about something, about the fall and corruption of man. Apparently, were to go on being a novel about the romance between childhood friends, the handsome shepherd named Daphnis and the beautiful shepherd named Chloe, it would not be manageable.
>>25498409I don’t want to replace anything about either Genesis or Longus and I have no idea what youre trying to get at…. I am saying it was influenced by a culture far more Christ leaning than the one Petronius was under in Nero times. That is all I am saying before you got your pants angry.
>>25498421> it's about something, about the fall and corruption of man.It’s about cities and civilization being a corrupting influence same as the cities like Enoch, created by Cain’s son in Genesis. The pastoral area is literally “ktema terpnon” as it says in the text. It’s a perfect and idyllic place free of corrupting influence - even when their aristocratic nature is revealed both prince and princess opt to remain as shepherds in Lesbos.
>this ancient work is actually Christian!!!1
>>25498339Don't read Graves unless you're okay with total fanfiction.
>>25498327I believe in the academic literature its under debate how much Apuleius added the middle-Platonic mystic elements to it vs how much that was already in the original and pseudo-Lucian actually deliberately stripped those out in his version, but im fairly sure its generally accepted that there was at least a Greek original.
>>25499399>Don't read Graves unless you're okay with total fanfiction.Big fat white mommy God is going to drug me, rape me, castrate me, strangle me, whip me fleshless, and then burn me alive.I can only get so erect.
