BMCR 2009.03.13, Robert H. F. Carver, The Protean Ass: The Metamorphoses

Robert H. F. Carver, The Protean Ass: The Metamorphoses of Apuleius
from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Oxford Classical Monographs.
Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2007.  Pp. xv, 545.  ISBN
978-0-19-921786-1.  $170.00.

Reviewed by Benjamin Todd Lee, Oberlin College ([email protected])
Word count:  732 words
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In this book, based on 20 years of doctoral and post-doctoral research,
Carver studies the Nachleben of Apuleius' novel from antiquity to the
mid-17th century. Its eleven chapters (perhaps a fortuitous coincidence
with the structure of the Golden Ass?) are organized chronologically:
six contain surveys of historical periods ("Antiquity to the Early
Middle Ages," "The High Middle Ages," "The Italian Renaissance," "The
Age of Print," and "Apuleius in England [1566-1660])," while the other
five present studies of works that are translations or that show
extensive interaction with Apuleius' novel (Colonna's  Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili, The Golden Asse of William Adlington, Sir Philip Sydney's
Arcadia, Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's
Dream).

Carver's work appeared at the same time as the study by Julia Gaisser,
and fortunately for the field of Apuleian studies, the two works
emphasize research in different periods.[[1]] Gaisser is primarily
concerned with the transmission and reception of Apuleius from
antiquity through the first vernacular translations of the novel;
Carver also treats the transmission of the novel, but deals more
extensively with English literature of the 16th and 17th century.  Thus
Carver describes his opening chapters as "essays in relatively
'straight' literary history," while in the middle and late chapters he
"deliberately 'thickened' the description, providing cultural contexts
for the reception"(9).

While many surveys of Apuleian influence must be content to cite words
or phrases from medieval and renaissance texts, Carver includes scores
of complete passages in the original languages (followed by his own
translations if the source is not in English). This assiduous
reproduction and translation of primary texts will prove a great
advantage to Apuleianists, who can now have access to a collation of
references.[[2]]

The great strengths of Carver's book are the "case studies" of the
English reception of the novel, where he has clearly gone farther than
his scholarly predecessors in gathering and synthesizing these textual
iuncturae. The sections on Spenser, Adlington, Sydney, and above all
Shakespeare are particularly well-executed. I also found the treatment
of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice, 1499, attributed by an
acrostic in the text to a Francesco Colonna) to be highly informative,
and Carver does a very good job exploring the use of both text and
sub-texts from Apuleius in this elusive and dark allegorical fantasy.
Carver's familiarity with Apuleius here adds to the work of Fumagalli,
Pozzi, and Ciapponi.[[3]]

I do have one hermeneutic criticism of this study. The book suggests
that there has been a progression from less to more sophisticated modes
of "integrated responses" by the readership of the Golden Ass, which
were achieved only in the Renaissance and the post-modern period. For
example, at 448 Carver observes "we have to wait until the twentieth
century to enjoy the kinds of integrated responses to the Golden Ass
that we have seen (if only fitfully) during the Renaissance."
Apuleianists will be familiar with Carver's brief article in the Kahane
and Laird prologue volume, in which he concluded that, until
Firenzuola's L'asino d'oro (Venice 1550), the Apuleian readership
seemed to commit the authorial fallacy by equating Lucius with the
author of the novel.[[4]] For Carver this amounted to "the inability or
refusal of past readers to reduce it to a mere literary device or
persona" (174). The current book is occasionally configured as a
substantiation of that claim.

It could be argued that this line of characterization in fact
undermines the project of the book, in that the reader is encouraged to
consider only a "fitful" portion of the readership to have been
dynamic.[[5]] This could shut down new readings of texts that have yet
to be performed. I might have liked to see more hermeneutic
alternatives left open here for the "middle" eras between late
antiquity and the renaissance, hermeneutics such as those Carver
utilized so effectively for his provocative reading of Shakespeare at
page 445: "the subversive reading of the Golden Ass is not an invention
of post-structuralism. Shakespeare was undermining the monolithic
interpretations four centuries before John J. Winkler."

Despite this objection to one aspect of Carver's Rezeptionstheorie, I
can assure the reader that this book is a thoughtful, substantial piece
of well-documented research. Most importantly, The Protean Ass will
play the role of bridge maker in the area of English receptions of
Apuleius. Carver is to be congratulated for this volume, which cannot
have been easy to produce, but which will certainly prove valuable to
future scholars.


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Notes:


1.   J. Gaisser, The Fortunes of Apuleius: A Study in Transmission and
Reception (Princeton, 2007).

2.   An odd decision was made to underline all abbreviations, even
standard abbreviations such as "q;", which appears in Carver's text
underlined as (que). This practice, combined with an italicized font,
can make for difficult reading in lengthy passages. Carver explains
this choice on page 10.

3.   E. Fumagalli, "Francesco Colonna: lettore di Apuleio e il problema
della datazione del Hypnerotomachia Polifili," Italia medioevale e
umanistica 27 (1984), 233-66; G. Pozzi and L. Ciapponi (eds.),
Hypnerotomachia Polifili (2 volumes; Padua, 1964).

4.   "Quis ille? The Role of the Prologue in Apuleius' Nachleben," in
A. Kahane and A. Laird (eds.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius'
Metamorphoses (Oxford, 2001), 163-174.

5.   For the argument that such a preconception can vitiate a study of
reception, see A. Grafton's review of E.J. Kenney's The Classical Text
in JRS 67 (1977), 171-7.