Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:38:44.555Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

RE-ENACTMENTS OF THE PROLOGUE IN CUPID'S PALACE: AN IMMERSIVE READING OF APULEIUS’ STORY OF CUPID AND PSYCHE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2021

Aldo Tagliabue
Aldo Tagliabue*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article offers a new interpretation of Apuleius’ story of Cupid and Psyche. Most scholars have previously offered a second-time reading of this story, according to which the reader reaches Book 11 and then looks back at Psyche's story of fall and redemption as a parallel for Lucius’ life. Following Graverini's and other scholars’ emotional approach to the Metamorphoses, I argue that the ecphrasis of Cupid's palace within the story of Cupid and Psyche includes multiple re-enactments of the novel's prologue. These re-enactments invite the reader to undertake a first-time and immersive reading of this story, which focusses on Psyche's experience of Cupid and her reaction to his epiphany. In its use of immersion, this article draws from recent developments in cognitive narratology and pushes scholars of Apuleius to focus on the reader's immersive and emotional response in order to reassess the value of a second-time reading of the Metamorphoses.

Keywords

Cupid and Psychefirst-time readingemotionsimmersionprologueseriocomic
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , December 2021 , pp. 799 - 818
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Martin Bloomer, Brittany Coffman, Riemer Faber, Luca Graverini, Jeffrey Ulrich, Jonathan Griffiths and Rachel Edney for their very helpful suggestions on early versions of this paper; I also thank the journal's anonymous reader for their careful comments.

References

1 Throughout the paper, AAGA 2 stands for M. Zimmerman et al., Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, II: Cupid and Psyche (Groningen, 1998); GCA 2004 stands for M. Zimmerman et al., Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Book IV 28–35, V and VI 1–24. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Text, Introduction and Commentary (Groningen, 2004).

2 G.C. Benson, Apuleius’ Invisible Ass. Encounters with the Unseen in the Metamorphoses (Cambridge, 2019), 26 n. 97. Cf. J.J. Winkler, Auctor & Actor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius's The Golden Ass (Berkeley, 1985).

3 See Benson (n. 2), 26–7 n. 97 for a survey of the scholarship with bibliographical details.

4 For a survey of serious and comic views, see S. Tilg, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: A Study in Roman Fiction (Oxford, 2014), 87–93.

5 On this shift, see GCA 2015 = W.H. Keulen et al., Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses XI (Groningen, 2015), 6. For a survey of seriocomic readings of the novel, see Tilg (n. 4), 93–105. For major seriocomic readings, see L. Graverini (transl. B.T. Lee), Literature and Identity in The Golden Ass of Apuleius (Columbus, OH, 2012) and Tilg (n. 4).

6 For examples, see again Tilg (n. 4), 87–105.

7 See P.G. Walsh, The Roman Novel: The Satyricon of Petronius and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius (Cambridge, 1970), 190–3; P. James, Unity in Diversity: A Study of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Hildesheim, 1987), 125–30; E.J. Kenney, Apuleius: Cupid & Psyche (Cambridge, 1990), 12–17; N. Shumate, Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Ann Arbor, 1996), 251–62; and W.S. Smith, ‘Cupid and Psyche tale: mirror of the novel’, in AAGA 2 (n. 1), 69–82.

8 For serious readings of C&P, see K. Dowden, ‘Cupid and Psyche: a question of the vision of Apuleius’, in AAGA 2 (n. 1), 1–22; M. O'Brien, ‘For every tatter in its mortal dress: Love, the Soul and her sisters’, in AAGA 2 (n. 1), 23–34; Panayotakis, C., ‘Vision and light in Apuleius’ tale of Psyche and her mysterious husband’, CQ 51 (2001), 576–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. All of these three readings are allegorical and use Platonic philosophy to see C&P as the narration of the soul's failed attempt to become one with divine love. For seriocomic readings of C&P, see Graverini (n. 5), 95–131 and S. Harrison, ‘Divine authority in “Cupid and Psyche”: Apuleius Metamorphoses 6, 23–24’, in S.N. Byrne, E.P. Cueva, J. Alvares (edd.), Authors, Authority, and Interpreters in the Ancient Novel (Groningen, 2006), 172–85. For comic readings of C&P, cf. GCA 2004 (n. 1), especially 3, and R. May, Apuleius and Drama. The Ass on Stage (Oxford, 2006), 208–48. For other readings of C&P which highlight the literary and intratextual quality of this story without directly addressing the serious-comic debate, see e.g. Finkelpearl, E.D., ‘Psyche, Aeneas and an ass: Apuleius Met. 6.10–6.21’, TAPhA 120 (1990), 333–48Google Scholar. For a folkloric reading of C&P, see G. Anderson, Fairytale in the Ancient World (London and New York, 2000), 61–71.

9 See e.g. C.C. Schlam, The Metamorphoses of Apuleius. On Making an Ass of Oneself (Chapel Hill and London, 1992); J. Heath, Actaeon, the Unmannerly Intruder: The Myth and its Meaning in Classical Literature (New York, 1992); N.W. Slater, ‘Passion and petrification: the gaze in Apuleius’, CPh 93 (1998), 18–48; K. Freudenburg, ‘Leering for the plot: visual curiosity in Apuleius and others’, in M. Paschalis, S. Frangoulidis, S. Harrison and M. Zimmerman (edd.), The Greek and the Roman Novel: Parallel Readings (Groningen, 2007), 238–62; Kirichenko, A., ‘Satire, propaganda, and the pleasure of reading: Apuleius’ stories of curiosity in context’, HSPh 104 (2008), 339–71Google Scholar; L. Graverini, ‘Come si deve leggere un romanzo. Narratori, personaggi e lettori nelle Metamorfosi di Apuleio’, in M. Carmignani, L. Graverini, B.T. Lee (edd.), Collected Studies on the Roman Novel. Ensayos sobre la novela romana (Cordoba, 2013), 119–39; Benson (n. 2). Not all of these authors explicitly define their interpretation as a first-time reading of the Metamorphoses; the use of this terminology is my own.

10 See W. Pater, Marius the Epicurean (London, 1885), 65.

11 Benson (n. 2), 121.

12 See Benson (n. 2), 103–12. A partial precedent to Benson's attempt is G. Sissa, ‘In touch, in love: Apuleius on the aesthetic impasse of a Platonic Psyche’, in A. Purves (ed.), Touch and the Ancient Senses (London, 2016), 150–66. Sissa reads C&P with a focus on Psyche's multisensorial experience of Cupid in bed. In the second part of her contribution (155–68), however, she shifts her attention away from C&P to superimpose other texts onto her reading, namely Platonic and Aristotelian reflections on aesthetics. In this way, Sissa's first-time reading of the story is undermined.

13 See Benson (n. 1), 131–6.

14 Allan, R.J., de Jong, I.J.F. and de Jonge, C.C., ‘From enargeia to immersion. The ancient roots of a modern concept’, Style 51 (2017), 34–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 34. For the foundational work on immersion, see M.L. Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (Baltimore, 2001).

15 See W. Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (London and Henley, 1978); S. Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, 1980); H.R. Jauss, Äesthetische Erfahrung und literarische Hermeneutik (Frankfurt, 1982).

16 Winkler (n. 2), 11.

17 Winkler (n. 2), 12. For an earlier suggestion of a reader-response approach to the Metamorphoses, see J.T. Svendsen, ‘Apuleius’ The Golden Ass: the demands on the reader’, Pacific Coast Philology 13 (1978), 101–7.

18 See Winkler (n. 2), 140–53.

19 Winkler (n. 2), 141.

20 Winkler (n. 2), 144.

21 See the introduction and n. 9 above for details of these scholars’ work. For Kenny's emotion-driven approach to reading-response, see Kenny, B., ‘The reader's role in The Golden Ass’, Arethusa 7 (1974), 187–209Google Scholar.

22 On the second wave of cognitive studies, see Kukkonen, K. and Caracciolo, M., the, ‘What is “Second Generation”?’, Style 48 (2014), 261–74Google Scholar. On the embodied model of reading, see K. Kukkonen, ‘Presence and prediction: the embodied reader's cascades of cognition’, Style 48 (2014), 367–84.

23 N.W. Slater, ‘The horizons of reading’, in A. Kahane and A. Laird (edd.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Oxford, 2001), 213–21, at 213. On the prologue, see A. Kahane and A. Laird (edd.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Oxford, 2001).

24 I leave aside intertextual and allegorical interpretations of this passage which do not capitalize on first-time readings of the novel, for which Ulrich, J., ‘Choose your own adventure: an εἰκών of Socrates in the prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, AJPh 138 (2017), 707–38Google Scholar is a very good representative; cf. also Schlam, C., ‘Platonica in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, TAPhA 101 (1970), 477–87Google Scholar.

25 The text of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses is taken from M. Zimmerman, Apulei Metamorphoseon libri XI (Oxford, 2012), while the translations are taken from the various Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius with the exception of Book 2, for which I use E.J. Kenney, The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses (London, 1998). With the phrase ‘my transl.’, I acknowledge the addition of minor adaptations to the listed translations.

26 W.H. Keulen, ‘Vocis immutatio: the Apuleian prologue and the pleasures and pitfalls of vocal versatility’, in V. Rimell (ed.), Orality and Representation in the Ancient Novel (Groningen, 2007), 106–37, at 106.

27 See Ulrich (n. 24), 712–16 on the Homeric origin of this metaphor and on other semantic connotations of consero. For further interpretations of the oral nature of the Metamorphoses, see e.g. Keulen (n. 26).

28 See GCA 2007 = W.H. Keulen, Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Book I (Groningen, 2007), 65. On the relationship between the word uarius and the reflection on ποικιλία within ancient criticism, see Faber, R., ‘The description of Staphylos’ palace (Dionysiaca 18.69–86) and the principle of ΠΟΙΚΙΛΙΑ’, Philologus 148 (2004), 245–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 246–7.

29 Scholars have identified him with Apuleius the author, Lucius the narrator, or the book itself of the Metamorphoses; see e.g. Tilg (n. 4), 21–4. For other options, see Ulrich (n. 24), 708 n. 3.

30 For a recent interpretation of this voice as disembodied and having a daemonic nature, see Benson (n. 2), 28–61.

31 The interpretation of Apuleius’ reference to the Milesian tales is highly debated among scholars. Graverini (n. 5), 48 convincingly takes this genre as ‘entertaining literature and fictional narrative’.

32 See Graverini (n. 5), 33–6. This association is confirmed by Ovid's Metamorphoses, which describes the Sirens’ voice as ‘a melody born to caress the ears’ (canor mulcendas natus ad aures, 5.561). For a second-time allegorical interpretation of permulcere as derived from the Greek ἐπᾴδειν, see Ulrich (n. 24), 717–18 based on Schlam (n. 24), 479–80.

33 GCA 2007 (n. 28), 71.

34 On curiosity as ‘l'un des thèmes majeurs dans les Métamorphoses’, see e.g. GCA 2001 = D. van Mal-Maeder, Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Livre II. Texte, Introduction et Commentaire (Groningen, 2001), 17 and Schlam (n. 9), 48–57.

35 For the key role of uoluptas in Book 2 and in the Metamorphoses as a whole, see GCA 2001 (n. 34), 23.

36 For copious bibliography on this passage, see GCA 2001 (n. 34), 91–9. R.G. Peden, ‘The statues in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses 2.4’, Phoenix 39 (1985), 380–3; Heath (n. 9); Slater (n. 9); M. Paschalis, ‘Reading space: a re-examination of Apuleian ekphrasis’, in M. Paschalis and S. Frangoulidis (edd.), Space in the Ancient Novel (Groningen, 2002), 132–42 and Freudenburg (n. 9) are especially interesting.

37 Freudenburg (n. 9), 243.

38 This translation is from Freudenburg (n. 9), 240.

39 See Graverini (n. 9), 122–4 and 132–6.

40 For Aristomenes’ curiosity, see 1.18.1: ‘And so I anxiously (curiose) and attentively looked at the throat of my companion’. For his wonder, see the following passage in the main text.

41 See especially 1.9 and Frangoulidis, S.A., ‘Cui uidebor ueri similia dicere proferens uera?: Aristomenes and the witches in Apuleius’ Tale of Aristomenes’, CJ 94 (1999), 375–91Google Scholar, at 379.

42 See Kirichenko (n. 9), 360–7.

43 Benson (n. 2), 240–51 argues that ‘reading the Metamorphoses is an immersive experience, and Apuleius employs a number of formal literary devices that make it seem as though Lucius’ world is right in front of readers—that “produce presence”’. Benson draws this last phrase from the title of H.U. Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey (Stanford, 2003). Benson, however, does not offer a detailed discussion of how the narrative of the Metamorphoses offers the readers this ‘immersive experience’. In the present article, I offer precisely this, with a focus on C&P. Graverini's study often hints at the notion of immersion, but never adopts it explicitly: for example, ‘the ancient novels [including Apuleius’] represent … an audience that is … willing to be emotionally and almost physically “transferred” into the narrative world they create’ (Graverini [n. 9], 138–9).

44 Here, and throughout the paper, I use ‘readers’ to refer to any kind of ancient readers of Apuleius, who the literary context of Apuleius’ work leads us to assume were educated and acquainted with literature.

45 See J. Grethlein, Aesthetic Experiences and Classical Antiquity: The Significance of Form in Narratives and Pictures (Cambridge and New York, 2017), 1–17 and 119–20.

46 J. Grethlein, ‘World and words. The limits to mimesis and immersion in Heliodorus’ Ethiopica’, in J. Grethlein, L. Huitink and A. Tagliabue (edd.), Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories (Oxford, 2019), 127–47, at 132–3.

47 Grethlein (n. 46), 147.

48 In this sentence I am slightly rephrasing Grethlein (n. 46), 145.

49 See Winkler (n. 2), 53 and Smith (n. 7), 70.

50 GCA 2004 (n. 1), 37.

51 Some scholars have identified an additional possible echo of the prologue. When Apollo's oracle is said to deliver its prophecy in Latin rather than in Greek propter Milesiae conditorem (‘for the sake of the author of the Milesian tale’, 4.32.6), some scholars argue that ‘the reference is … to the narrating I of the novel, the ego of the opening sentence’ (GCA 2004 [n. 1], 85). However, unlike the old narrator's comment discussed in the main text, this additional echo is not relevant to our interpretation, since it does not address the prologue's contract. Similarly, Yun Lee Too sees a connection between the prologue and C&P which is different from mine: in her view, ‘the Prologue's unstable rhetoric of identity’ is reflected in how the story asks ‘questions about [the] textual identity’ of the involved characters: see Y.L. Too, ‘Losing the author's voice: cultural and personal identities in the Metamorphoses prologue’, in A. Kahane and A. Laird (edd.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Oxford, 2001), 177–87, at 183–4.

52 Benson (n. 2), 138. For a list of these words, see Benson (n. 2), 131 n. 113.

53 See Benson (n. 2), 40–6.

54 In my own discussion of the re-enactments of the prologue in this section, I will include three of the words mentioned by Benson (n. 2), 131 n. 113, namely mulcentia (Met. 5.6.9), susurrus (5.6.10) and remulcebant (5.15.2).

55 See J. Soldo, ‘Review of G.C. Benson, Apuleius’ Invisible Ass. Encounters with the Unseen in the Metamorphoses’, CR 70 (2019), 131–2, at 132: ‘While I agree with B. that the prologue's disembodied voice sets the unsettling tone of the narrative and foreshadows the important role that invisibility plays in the novel, the relationship between the disembodied voice in the prologue and the voice that Psyche hears giving her instructions remains unclear.’

56 See Murgatroyd, P., ‘Apuleian ecphrasis: Cupid's palace at Met. 5.1.2–5.2.2’, Hermes 125 (1997), 357–66Google Scholar; S. Brodersen, ‘Cupid's palace – a Roman villa (Apul. Met. 5,1)’, in AAGA 2 (n. 1), 113–25; D. van Mal-Maeder, ‘Le décor réflexif dans le conte d'Amour et Psyché: d'Apulée à Jean de la Fontaine’, in B. Pouderon (ed.), Lieux, décors et paysages de l'ancien roman des origines à Byzance (Lyon, 2005), 153–61.

57 See van Mal-Maeder (n. 56).

58 See Heath (n. 9), 106.

59 See, for example, Schlam (n. 9), 67–81. The second-time readers of this ecphrasis would include Isis’ appearance in this list.

60 See Murgatroyd (n. 56), 360.

61 See e.g. Smith (n. 7), 77; Graverini (n. 5), 133–64; and Tilg (n. 4), 37–55.

62 See E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York, 1953), 195–200 and P. Haß, Der locus amoenus in der antiken Literatur: Zu Theorie und Geschichte eines literarischen Motivs (Bamberg, 1998), 98–115. Apuleius’ familiarity with this literary motif is further proven by the inclusion of another locus amoenus in Book 1 (1.19.7), which is soon transformed into a locus horridus (1.19.9–11). The readers’ recollection in Book 5 of this earlier and darker locus amoenus would likely reinforce the connotation of delight regarding Cupid's palace.

63 See Murgatroyd (n. 56), 366: ‘The effect of the setting on Psyche is shown … by allusion to her pleasure, curiosity and wonder.’

64 This connection between rimatur and rimabundus is reinforced by the fact that the verb rimor is used on only two other occasions in the Metamorphoses to describe Lucius’ curiosity (rimabar singula at 2.26.2 and rimatus angulum at 4.22). In addition, the memory of Lucius’ response to the ecphrasis at Byrrhena's house is highlighted by the following phrase heard by Psyche: tua sunt haec omnia ‘All of these things are yours’, 5.2.3; this phrase closely recalls Byrrhena's promise tua sunt … cuncta quae uides ‘All that you see is yours’, 2.5.1, transl. Freudenburg (n. 9), 240; see GCA 2004 (n. 1), 125 for the discussion of this intratextual allusion.

65 See J.K. Krabbe, The Metamorphoses of Apuleius (New York / Bern / Frankfurt / Paris, 1989), 6 and Schlam (n. 9), 46, both of whom argue that in the Metamorphoses all verbs in mulc- recall the metaliterary agenda of the prologue.

66 Here I follow Kenney (n. 7) against Zimmerman (n. 25).

67 See TLL s.v. confercio.

68 OLD s.v. 1.

69 OLD s.v. 1.

70 OLD s.v. 6.

71 See TLL s.v. consero.

72 For the only other occurrence of susurrus in the Metamorphoses after C&P, see 8.10.3, where Thrasyllus’ ‘shameless whispers’ (susurros improbos) to Charite are mentioned.

73 R.J. Allan, ‘Narrative immersion. Some linguistic and narratological aspects’, in J. Grethlein, L. Huitink and A. Tagliabue (edd.), Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories (Oxford, 2019), 15–35, at 18. What follows is a simplified version of Allan's list at 18–19.

74 See Harrison (n. 8) and GCA 2004 (n. 1), 2.

75 See S. Mattiacci, ‘Neoteric and elegiac echoes in the tale of Cupid and Psyche by Apuleius’, in AAGA 2 (n. 1), 127–49, at 137–40 for a detailed literary analysis of Apollo's oracle.

76 GCA 2004 (n. 1), 273.

77 Grethlein, J. and Huitink, L., ‘Homer's vividness. An enactive approach’, JHS 137 (2017), 67−91Google Scholar.

78 See Sissa (n. 12), 152–3.

79 Sissa (n. 12), 151 analyses ‘the sensuous, sensual and synaesthetic intimacy of Cupid and Psyche in bed’, suggesting a way in which this immersive reading may extend to chapter 13 of Book 5 and to the last paragraphs of chapter 22.

80 GCA 2004 (n. 1), 294.

81 See Penwill, J.L., a, ‘Reflections on “happy ending”: the case of Cupid and Psyche’, Ramus 27 (1998), 160–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 See e.g. Kenney (n. 7), 15 who in the list of parallels between Psyche and Cupid's lives mentions only Psyche's inprospera curiositas among her emotions, and then comments: ‘Both human protagonists obstinately persist in the path to ruin, blind and deaf to repeated warnings …’.

83 On Mithras as a reader of C&P, see e.g. Sandy, G.N., ‘Seruiles uoluptates in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Phoenix 28 (1974), 234−44CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Graverini (n. 5), 114–18.

84 Murgatroyd (n. 56), 357.

85 See Smith (n. 7), 78–82 and Kenney (n. 7), 12–17, both of whom omit any reference to Psyche's visit to Cupid's palace. Cf. also Dowden (n. 8), 13 and Panayotakis (n. 8), 579, who make only a brief reference to this episode. Shumate (n. 7), 255–7 is the only real exception to this trend, but she looks at the palace scene because, against the evidence, she takes Psyche's emotions there as a sign of her ‘attitude of mindless diversion’ (256).

86 Cf. GCA 2004 (n. 1), 138 on ‘the dangers of [Psyche's] misplaced curiosity’.

87 See e.g. Laird, A., ‘Description and divinity in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, GCN 8 (1997), 59–85Google Scholar and GCA 2015 (n. 5), 123–5.

88 See GCA 2004 (n. 1), 272−4.

89 For the entire epilogue, see J. Elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton, 2007), 289–302. All quotes come from page 300.

90 For this parallel, see Smith (n. 7), 80 and S. Frangoulidis, ‘Transforming the genre: Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, in M. Paschalis, S. Frangoulidis, S. Harrison and M. Zimmerman (edd.), The Greek and the Roman Novel: Parallel Readings (Groningen, 2007), 193–203.

91 Kenny (n. 21), 193.

92 See e.g. M. Anderson, D. Cairns and M. Sprevak (edd.), Distributed Cognition in Classical Antiquity (Edinburgh, 2018); J. Grethlein, L. Huitink and A. Tagliabue (edd.), Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories (Oxford, 2019).