BMCR 2009.07.21: Response: Frangoulidis on Kirichenko on Stavros Frangoulidis, Witches, Isis and Narrative: Approaches to Magic in Apuleius' Metamorphoses

Frangoulidis on Kirichenko on Stavros Frangoulidis, Witches,
Isis and Narrative: Approaches to Magic in Apuleius' Metamorphoses.
Response to BMCR 2009.06.33

Response by Stavros Frangoulidis, Aristotelian University of
Thessaloniki ([email protected])
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To read a print-formatted version of this response, see
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-07-21.html
To comment on this review, see
http://www.bmcreview.org/2009/07/20090721.html
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I would like to thank very much Alexander Kirichenko for the time he
spent in reading and reviewing my recent book. However, there are a few
comments I wish to make regarding the subject matter of the book and my
authorial approach and intentions.

Following J.J. Winkler, the reviewer opts for a narratological reading
in which the voices of the writer and of Lucius as narrator and actor
are intertwined in the narrative of the Golden Ass.[[1]] In his
brilliant work, Winkler discusses the multiplicity of Lucius' roles and
voices within the text. Unlike narratological approaches, I decided to
take an entirely different tack and concentrate exclusively on the
different attitudes characters display towards magic, either in
embedded tales or in the main plot, inasmuch as this approach can offer
us new insights towards our understanding of the complex dynamics of
the work.

>From the very outset, my intention was to highlight Lucius'
comparatively good fortune as victim of magic when compared to that of
all the other characters in the novel. The intratextual approach
pursued in my work further led me to suggest that the novel's final
book may be read as a second Metamorphoses, rewritten from a positive
perspective. This reading of similarities and contrasts among
characters in the various inserted tales and episodes has further
shown, I believe, the predominantly didactic aim of the narrative. My
reading of the Metamorphoses does not, of course, rule out the
possibility of other dimensions (comic, ironic, satiric, etc.), which
may emerge from other approaches; but the book yields findings based on
the intratextual approach I chose to adopt from the very beginning.

Last but not least, as explained in detail in the book, I attempted to
situate the narrative of the Golden Ass in relation to the genre of the
ideal Greek novels precisely because the Latin novel both follows and
alters the dynamics of the plotline of those novels. It is true, of
course, that the narrative of the Golden Ass also incorporates features
from other genres, such as epic, tragedy, comedy, elegy, etc., but
these have already been the subject of thorough investigation by
several scholars, myself included.[[2]]


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Notes:


1.   J.J. Winkler, Auctor and Actor. A Narratological Reading of
Apuleius's Golden Ass (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1985).

2.   E.g. 'Epic Inversion in the Tale of Tlepolemus / Haemus'.
Mnemosyne 44 (1992) 60-74; also 'New Comedy in Apuleius' Tale of Cupid
and Psyche'. In Stavros Frangoulidis, Handlung und Nebenhandlung:
Theater, Metatheater und Gattungsbewusstsein in der roemischen Komoedie
(Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1997) 145-177.