This sixth AN Supplementum, Lectiones Scrupulosae (‘Scrupulous Readings'), is a Festschrift in honour of Maaike Zimmerman offered to her by a group of Apuleian scholars on the occasion of her sixty-fifth birthday. Ιt is a volume focused on the text of Apuleius' Metamorphoses that offers Maaike and all other lectores scrupulosi (‘scrupulous readers') of Apuleius' novel a collection of studies that shed new light on certain aspects of text and interpretation. Moreover, since Maaike Zimmerman is currently working on a new critical edition of Apuleius' Metamorphoses for the Oxford Classical Texts series, an additional motivation for this volume was the presentation of a collection of original papers providing material on a number of passages for Maaike to ponder and take into consideration as she reviews the text.
Everything proceeds from the text: a textual issue can open the door to a broader approach, including, for example, discussions of literary interpretation, linguistics, or style. Hence, one of the themes of the volume is to show connections between problems of textual criticism and larger interpretative issues (e.g. Bitel, Finkelpearl, McCreight, Keulen). Maaike herself is expert at this kind of ‘explication du texte'. Within the broad spectrum between ‘text' and ‘interpretation', the contributions to this volume present different approaches and choices, varying from a traditional, purely ‘textual' approach to one that is largely interpretative and seeks to explain the multi-layered texture of Apuleius' narrative in the light of certain metaphors, images, or expressions. Some articles offer new conjectures and readings of vexed passages (Harrison, Plaza), support unjustly neglected conjectures (McCreight, Schmeling and Montiglio), or propose to banish certain passages or phrases once and for all from the center of the text to a peripheral exile in the apparatus criticus, as a footnote in the history of the text's reception (Bitel, Hunink). Other contributions focus on the ‘authorship' of the Metamorphoses (Tatum) or the vicissitudes of the Apuleian text in the hands of Medieval and Renaissance readers (Hunink, May). Through their contributions to Lectiones Scrupulosae, the authors of this AN Supplementum not only honour Maaike as a text-editor or commentator, but also pay tribute to her other scholarly output, such as her work on Cupid and Psyche (Hijmans), on Apuleius and Roman Satire or the Greek Ass Tale (e.g. Dowden, Graverini, Plaza, Panayotakis), on the reader's role in the Prologue and on Apuleian ecphrasis (Keulen, van Mal-Maeder), or on space symbolism in the Metamorphoses (James and O'Brien). But all contributors in this volume also send Maaike the same message of friendship and gratitude that can be summarized as follows: Lector, intende: laetaberis.
Table of Contents
Introduction. Bryan Reardon, From Perry to Groningen. James Tatum, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Author of the Metamorphoses. Ben L. Hijmans, Apollo's Sn(e)aky Tongue(s). Gareth Schmeling & Silvia Montiglio, Riding the Waves of Passion: an Exploration of an Image of Appetites in Apuleius' Metamorphoses. Ken Dowden, A Tale of Two Texts: Apuleius' sermo Milesius and Plato's Symposium. Stephen J. Harrison, Some Textual Problems in Apuleius' Metamorphoses. Maria Plaza, Nomen omen - Narrative Instantiation of Rhetorical Expressions in Apuleius' Metamorphoses. Luca Graverini, An Old Wife's Tale. Stelios Panayotakis, A Pain in The Ass. Thomas McCreight, Psyche's Sisters as Medicae? Allusions to Medicine in Cupid and Psyche. Wytse Keulen, Ad amussim congruentia: Measuring the Intellectual in Apuleius. Ellen Finkelpearl, The Language of Animals and the Text of Apuleius' Metamorphoses. Anton Bitel: Apuleius, Asinus aureus 1,5,3 and the Interpretative Implications of Naming Narrators. Paula James & Maeve o'Brien, To Baldly Go: A Last Look at Lucius and his Counter-Humiliation Strategies. Danielle van Mal-Maeder, Lucius descripteur: quelques remarques sur le livre 11 des Métamorphoses d'Apulée. Vincent Hunink, The ‘spurcum additamentum' (Apul. Met. 10,21) once again. Regine May, The Prologue to Apuleius' Metamorphoses and Coluccio Salutati: MS Harley 4838 (With an Appendix on Sozomeno of Pistoia and the Nonius Marginalia). Notes on Contributors. Indices. Tabula gratulatoria.
Reviews
- Peter Habermehl, Gymnasium 117,2 (2010), 149-154
Extra information
A pdf file containing the Table of Contents, Introduction and Indices is available here for free.
Subscribers to the on line version of Ancient Narrative can download the pdf file wth the full text of this volume at http://www.ancientnarrative.com/.
A list of all volumes that have appeared in the Ancient Narrative Supplementa is available here.
