For my appetizer presentation, I want to talk about Apuleius’s The Golden Ass. The Golden Ass is a novel written in Latin in the late 2nd century CE, and it shares some characteristics with Satyrica, such as the bizarre storyline and characters and inset stories within the narrative. The main character, Lucius, gets turned into a donkey because of a magic spell gone wrong, and the novel follows his adventures and attempts to return to his human form.
I’m particularly interested in looking at how Apuleius describes Lucius’s transformation and body and how these tie into aspects of the grotesque that we’ve talked about in class. I found a quotation from Rabelais and his World where Bakhtin calls donkeys the “most ancient and lasting symbols of the material bodily lower stratum.” I thought it would be interesting to think about how the grotesque manifests outside of the human realm. I plan to talk for a few minutes about the novel, then have people free write in response to some questions and passages from Bakhtin and Apuleius, talk in pairs, and then come together as a class for a quick discussion.
I’m really excited for this idea! Last semester in my Latin class (with Prof Farmer) we read “The Golden Ass” and I really enjoyed the text. The Satyrica has gotten me thinking a lot about this book since Lucias, like Enculpius, is the narrator of a story about himself, and they are both very stupid. I have found the two characters to be really similar in a lot of ways so I’m glad this text is being brought into this class. I’ve also found it interesting how in the Satyrica, Enculpius is an unreliable narrator as is Lucius. This makes the take away from the feast of Tramalchio confusing, since while Enculpius clearly judges Tramalchio, it is also clear that Tramalchio’s life is way better. Similarly, the ending of “The Golden Ass” is confusing since Lucius is also an idiot so it is unclear if the end is serious. I’m very glad you are bringing this to the class and am very excited for the appetizer.
This sounds really fun! I’m so used to comparing modern literature and haven’t even considered doing the same for ancient literature. Can’t wait to see what you do.
I really enjoyed your appetizer! I haven’t had much exposure to ancient roman literature in the past and was really interested to learn about the different tropes and aspects of the text that are unfamiliar. I particularly liked how you incorporated the theme of the donkey as a representation of the grotesque by utilizing such a perfect text as an example.