A study of Daphnis & Chloe

148 Pages·042.325 MB·English

by  R. L. Hunter

CAMBRIDGE CLASSICAL STUDIES
General Editors
J. A. CROOK, E. J. KENNEY, A. M. SNODGRASS
A STUDY OF DAPHNIS & CHLOE

A STUDY OF DAPHNIS & CHLOE
R. L. HUNTER
Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge 1983
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1983
This digitally printed version 2007
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 83-3928
ISBN 978-0-521-25452-6 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-04137-9 paperback
CONTENTS
Preface Vii
References and abbreviations iX
1 Title, author, date 1
2 The constituent elements 16
(i) Daphnis and Chloe 16
(ii) The legend of Daphnis 22
(iii) The gods in Daphnis & Chloe 31
(iv) The prologue 38
(v) The included narratives 52
(vi) Conclusion 57
3 The literary texture 59
Appendix A: Longus and Sappho 73
Appendix B: Longus and Philitas 76
4 Language and style 84
Notes 101
Bibliography 130
Index of passages discussed 132
Index of subjects 135
v

PREFACE
The prose fiction of antiquity has been the subject of increas
ing scholarly attention in the last twenty-five years, and
Daphnis & Chloe has benefited from this general revival of
interest. Nevertheless, critical progress has been hindered by
the lack of a basic guide to the literary and rhetorical back
ground against which this work was written. The present
essay is an attempt to fill that gap. I have tried to combine
information of a kind which is usually found in a continuous
commentary with an outline of the various interpretative
directions in which that information points. About the
'origins of the Greek Novel', the problem which has domi
nated scholarship in this field ever since the publication of
Erwin Rohde's magnificent study Der griechische Roman und
seine Vorlaufer, I have said very little, although Longus'
exploitation of the traditions of historiography and comedy
serves as a reminder of two major influences on the fiction
of later antiquity. My silence on this subject will, I hope,
suggest that it is unhelpful to view Daphnis & Chloe as 'the
standard ancient novel' relocated in a pastoral setting and
that a solution to the problem of the origins of the genre as
a whole is unlikely also to supply the key to an appreciation
of a particular example of the genre. The Greek novels which
survive in a manuscript tradition differ from each other so
widely in terms of wit, rhetorical skill and narrative coherence
that, even after the standard division into pre-sophistic
(Xenophon of Ephesus, Chariton) and sophistic (Achilles
Tatius, Longus, Heliodorus), it makes very little sense to
treat them as though they were almost identical specimens
off a production-line.
I am rather less happy that I have had little to say about
the relationship between the world presented in Daphnis &
Chloe and rural life on the Aegean islands in the second and
VII
PREFACE
third centuries A.D. Even if, however, I were fully competent
to discuss the social and economic history of the Roman
Empire, it may be doubted whether prolonged consideration
of this topic would prove very fruitful. Longus presents us
with a stylised picture of rural life on an island famous for
poetry and wine, and this picture is consistent and, in its
own literary and rhetorical context, plausible. Analysis of
Daphnis & Chloe can, of course, tell us something about
attitudes towards the countryside in the period in which it
was written, although it is in other respects so individual a
work that we should be cautious about using it as a repre
sentative expression of the views of a whole social class.
In preparing this study I have incurred a number of debts
which I here gratefully acknowledge. Michael Reeve kindly
sent me a copy of his text of Longus before its publication,
and Ewen Bowie's comments on the penultimate version of
this essay identified many obscurities and saved me from
several errors. Susan Moore guided the book through the
final stages of preparation with her habitual care and acumen.
I wish to thank the General Editors of Cambridge Classical
Studies and the Faculty Board of Classics for undertaking
the publication of this work and, in particular, Professor
E. J. Kenney for his assistance and encouragement. Four
institutions have put me deeply in their debt: the British
Academy, which provided financial assistance towards a
period of research abroad; the Fondation Hardt in Geneva,
where that research was conducted in ideal surroundings;
the Cambridge Univ.ersity Press, which has handled this book
and its author with enviable skill; and Pembroke College, for
whose continued kindnesses this slim volume is scant reward.
If she had allowed it, my largest debt of all would have
been acknowledged in the dedication of this book to my wife.
Cambridge R.L.H.
April, 1983
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