Ancient Fiction (Routledge Revivals)

<p>A number of ancient novelists were skilful storytellers and resourceful literary artists and their works are often carefully individualised presentations of an ancient and distinguished heritage.</p><p>Ancient Fiction first published in 1984 examines the tales retold by these novelists in light of more recently discovered Near Eastern texts and in this way offers a tentative solution to Rohde’s celebrated problem about the origins of the Greek novel. Among the surprises that emerge are an ancient stratum of the <i>Arabian Nights </i>and a possible <i>Tristan-Romance</i> as well as an animal <i>Satyricon </i>and a human <i>Golden Ass</i>. </p><p>This new framework is however incidental to an examination of the achievements of ancient novelists in their own right. In presenting character structuring narrative imposing a veneer of sophistication or contriving a religious ethos these writers demonstrate that their work is worthy of sympathetic study rather dismissal as the pulp fiction of the ancient world. </p>