Rudis Locutor: Speech and Self-Fashioning in Apuleius' Metamorphoses by Evelyn Wynn Adkins A ...

238 Pages·2014·1.17 MB·English

by  Evelyn Adkins

Rudis Locutor: Speech and Self-Fashioning in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

by

Evelyn Wynn Adkins

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Classical Studies)
in the University of Michigan
2014

Doctoral Committee:

Professor David S. Potter, Chair
Professor Sara Ahbel-Rappe
Associate Professor Basil Dufallo
Professor Yopie Prins
If this were a novel it would be the ‘frame story,’ isn’t that what they call it,
but it would have an even bigger story inside it. About history. About truth.

John Crowley, Aegypt

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
© Evelyn Wynn Adkins
2014
For my parents, with more love and thanks
than I can put into words.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work bears the mark of many hands. First and foremost, I thank David Potter
for his academic and professional support. Thanks for always encouraging me to see the
big picture, unexpected angles, and new connections. Thanks to Basil Dufallo, for
discussions about Apuleius and Petronius and for challenging me to keep strengthening
my arguments and definitions. To Sara Ahbel-Rappe, for your insightful comments, for
Bourdieu, and for urging me to question the systems of the ancient world. To Yopie
Prins, for pointing me towards linguistic anthropology, which is providing me with new
insights into discourse and power. And to Mira Seo, for helping me take those first steps
in organizing my thoughts about Apuleius.
Thanks must also go to the Department of Classical Studies at Michigan. To Ruth
Scodel as chair, for supporting my interests in Apuleius and archaeology, and for
enabling me to teach the ancient novel at Michigan State. Thank you for your generous
guidance in teaching us about Classics as a profession as well as a discipline. To Arthur
Verhoogt, for your years of advising throughout my graduate career. To Chris Ratté, for
your professional and personal advice, for overseeing the final stages of my master’s
degree, and for Aphrodisias. To Bruce Frier, for reading my first chapter and for
discussions about deviance. Thanks to the many Classics faculty who have chatted with
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me in the hall about Apuleius. Infinite thanks to the amazing Classics staff, especially
Michelle Biggs. I would not have survived graduate school, teaching, or the job market
without your help.
Thanks to colleagues beyond Michigan who have supported this project. To Keith
Bradley and Ewen Bowie, for great conversations, helpful feedback, and for introducing
me to many other scholars of the ancient novel. To the American School of Classical
Studies in Athens, Margie Miles, Jack Davis, Michael MacKinnon, Guy Sanders, and
Charles K. Williams II, who taught me so much about ancient and modern Greece. To my
fellow Regular and Associate Members of 2010-2011: I will never forget our year
exploring Greece together. Many thanks to those who first introduced me to the study of
the ancient world: the Classics Department at Macalester College, especially Beth
Severy-Hoven, Joseph L. Rife, and Mireille Lee.
To friends at Michigan past and present, who are always ready to listen, laugh,
and vent: Karen Acton, Laura Banducci, Joe Beals, Cassandra Borges, Clara Bosak-
Schroeder, Ellen Cole, Angela Committo, Jason Farr, Harriet Fertik, Nick Geller,
Carolyn Gersh, Joe Groves, Dina Guth, Ryan Hughes, Tom Landvatter, Mike Leese and
Amy Warhaft, Katherine Lu and Dave Hsu, Charlotte Maxwell-Jones, Jonathan and
Tiggy McLaughlin, Jana Mokrisova, Beth Platte, Rebecca Porte, Anne Reidmiller, Jared
Secord, and many others. Thanks to the Dissertator’s Group and Three Fields Talks
organizers, who gave me opportunities to present my research to my graduate colleagues.
Thanks to the Ann Arbor School of Yoga and Laurie Blakely, for keeping me
sane during the final years of my dissertation. And to the ladies and gent of Unveiled
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Dance Company, thanks for keeping me productively insane throughout graduate school.
I could not have done this without the weekly support, laughter, and dancing.
Thanks to my friends and family. To my parents, who have always supported me
in every way possible - here’s to many more trips together to Mediterranean lands! Love
and thanks to Jared, Tara, Bodhi, Opal, and the forthcoming Adkins. To my aunt Anne
and my grandparents, Marion and Rufus, for always encouraging me. To Pops and
Grandma Dot: I know you would have loved to see this. To the Hammond and Banka
clans, who have welcomed me so warmly into your families. And thanks especially to
some of the most brilliant and amazing friends I’ve had the pleasure of knowing:
Jacquelyn Clements, Sarah Detzner, Sara Lampert, Laura Mariani, and Joanna Stein.
To my husband, Mark D. Hammond: thank you for listening, for reading, for your
daily love and support, and for your contributions to my ever-growing collection of
donkey-related items. My donkeys will always share space with your books.

This research was supported by the Department of Classical Studies; a Rackham
Graduate School Humanities Dissertation Fellowship (2009-2010), Graduate Student
Research Grant (2011), and Centennial Grant (2012); and a Michael Jameson Fellowship
at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (2010-2011).
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication.......................................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................................iii
Abbreviations...............................................................................................................................vii
Abstract........................................................................................................................................viii
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................1
The Life and Works of Apuleius.........................................................................................................3
The Metamorphoses...........................................................................................................................12
History of Scholarship.......................................................................................................................16
Speech and Self-Presentation in the Second Sophistic......................................................................19
Discourse Analysis and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses..........................................................................24
Speech and Self-Fashioning in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses...............................................................28
Chapter One. The Priests and the Bandits: The Speech of Alternative Communities...........33
The Priests of the Syrian Goddess.....................................................................................................36
The Bandits........................................................................................................................................44
The Robbers’ Rhetoric.......................................................................................................................47
Chapter Two. Public Speech and Self-Fashioning.....................................................................61
The Tale of Thelyphron.....................................................................................................................65
Lucius at the Festival of Laughter.....................................................................................................70
The Wise Physician of Apuleius’ Phaedra.......................................................................................82
Truth and the Body............................................................................................................................88
Chapter Three. Lucius’ Speech and Self-Fashioning................................................................93
Lucius’ Characterization....................................................................................................................96
Lucius’ First Master: Milo...............................................................................................................103
Lucius’ Metamorphosis...................................................................................................................111
Social Status and Strategies of Communication..............................................................................115
Chapter Four. Curiosity, Magic, Silence, and Revelation.......................................................127
A Brief History of Curiosity............................................................................................................130
The Benefits of Silence....................................................................................................................136
Unheeded Warnings: Magic and the Dangers of Curiosity.............................................................140
Lucius’ Magical Initiation...............................................................................................................148
Asinine Curiosity, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Ears...................................151
Silence and Revelation....................................................................................................................157
Chapter Five. The Narrator’s Identity and the Novel As Discourse......................................165
The Prologue....................................................................................................................................170
The Characterized Fictive Reader...................................................................................................180
The Narrator’s Identity Revealed....................................................................................................187
Conclusion. The Man From Madaura......................................................................................203
Bibliography................................................................................................................................211
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ABBREVIATIONS

AAGA 1 = Hijmans, B. L., Jr. & van der Paardt, R. T. (eds.) 1978. Aspects of
Apuleius' Golden Ass Vol. 1. Groningen: Bouma.

AAGA 2 = Zimmerman, M., et al. (eds.) 1998. Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass Vol.
II: Cupid and Psyche. Groningen: Forsten.

AAGA 3 = Keulen, W. H. & Egelhaaf-Gaiser, U. (eds.) 2012. Aspects of Apuleius'
Golden Ass. Volume III: The Isis Book. Leiden: Brill.

GCA 1977 = Hijmans, B. L., Jr. et al. 1977. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses
Book IV.1-27. Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius. Groningen: Bouma.

GCA 1981 = Hijmans, B. L., Jr. et al. 1981. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses
Books VI.25-32 and VII. Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius.
Groningen: Bouma.

GCA 1985 = Hijmans, B. L., Jr. et al. 1985. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses
Book VIII. Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius. Groningen: Egbert
Forsten.

GCA 1995 = Hijmans, B. L., Jr. et al. 1995. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses
Book IX. Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius. Groningen: Egbert
Forsten.

GCA 2000 = Zimmerman, M. 2000. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Book X.
Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.

GCA 2001 = van Mal-Maeder, D. 2001. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Livre
II. Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.

GCA 2004 = Zimmerman, M., et al. 2004. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses
Books IV.28-35, V and VI.1-24: The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Groningen
Commentaries on Apuleius. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.

GCA 2007 = Keulen, W. H. 2007. Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Book I.
Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.
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ABSTRACT

This dissertation argues that discourse, broadly defined to include speech, silence,
gesture, and text, is a primary tool for the negotiation of social and power relations in
Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. I begin by conceptualizing the dynamics of identity
construction and status negotiation in the speech of elite and non-elite characters. Chapter
One discusses the distinctive uses of language by non-elite, alternative communities in
the novel. Chapter Two documents successes and failures in the public speech of elite
characters. Through these episodes, Apuleius establishes a dissonance between the
intended production and actual reception of characters’ discourse, challenging the
relationship between internal identity and external appearance and destabilizing speech as
a marker of status and truth. With this framework in place, I turn to the problematic
characterization of the protagonist Lucius. Chapter Three examines how Lucius
undermines his own elite self-fashioning through words and actions. Chapter Four
focuses on mystical silence versus garrulous curiosity and Lucius’ attempts to gain power
and control through access to supernatural knowledge. Finally, Chapter Five discusses
the novel itself as a discursive negotiation between the narrator Lucius and his
characterized fictive reader. These misrepresentations, miscommunications, and
misinterpretations prepare the reader for the final revelation of the narrator’s - and the
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