Almost fifteen years after the publication of influential studies such as R. Carver, The Protean Ass (2007), and J. Gaisser, The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass (2008), scholarship on the reception of Apuleius’ novel, the Metamorphoses or Golden Ass, continues to thrive. That is not only shown by this volume but also by the recent Cupid and Psyche (2020), edited by R. May and S. Harrison, which springs from a conference held in Leeds in July 2016 and collects studies on the reception of the eponymous tale embedded within Apuleius’ novel (Met. 4.28–6.24) from the seventeenth century onwards. Furthermore, May and Harrison, who also contribute chapters to the volume under review alongside Carver and Gaisser, are writing a forthcoming book on the early-modern reception of Cupid and Psyche entitled Love and the Soul: Apuleius’ tale of Cupid and Psyche in European Literature since 1650. No doubt, an important role for drawing new scholarly attention to Apuleius’ Nachleben must be ascribed to the two-day conference, The Afterlife of Apuleius, organised by R. Mouren and G. Woolf and held at the Warburg Institute in March 2016. This volume, which is also available as an Open Access electronic publication (DOI: 10.14296/121.9781905670956), gathers twelve papers that were delivered during this conference.
The focus of the collection is the reception of Apuleius’ works, primarily the Metamorphoses, across the span of several centuries and in different areas, from Western Europe to Mexico. The book is divided into four sections. The contributions in Section 1, ‘Apuleius’ Travels’, delve into different instances of the reception of Apuleius. Carver's chapter investigates the possible imitation of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses in two medieval satirical poems, the Speculum Stultorum, composed by the English monk Nigellus around 1179–1180, and the anonymous Asinarius, commonly associated with the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II (1194–1250). The ramifications of Carver's hypothesis are that the Metamorphoses must have circulated outside Monte Cassino, where the earliest manuscripts were produced in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and reached Northern Europe. While allusions to Apuleius in the Speculum Stultorum seem tenuous, the Apuleian similarities Carver detects in the Asinarius are slightly more compelling, though Carver admits that Ovid and Avianus, Fab. 5 (De Asino Pelle Leonis Induto) could also have served as models. Less convincing are the verbal parallels Carver uses to suggest that the so-called Spurcum Additamentum (a fragment transmitted in the margins of some MSS, illustrating the foreplay between the matron and the donkey in Apul. Met. 10.21) may have been produced by the intellectuals at the court of Frederick II. A. Laird discusses the circulation of Apuleius’ works in Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where missionaries and educators show knowledge of them. The most striking parallels Laird detects are the allusions to the Metamorphoses in two accounts of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Laird notes that the prefatory letter in Bernardo Ceinos de Riofrío's Centonicum Virgilianum Monimentum (1680) clearly resembles the prologue of the novel (Apul. Met. 1.1). Furthermore, he recognises how the Virgin's apparition in the Nahuatl account by Luis Laso de la Vega, Huey Tlamahuiçoltica (1649), may be compared to the vision of the goddess Isis in Met. 11. Luis Becerra Tanco's translation of this story into Spanish (1666) betrays further similarities with the epiphany of Isis in Met. 11 and her speech to Lucius, which seems to be imitated in Becerra Tanco's depiction of the Virgin and her speech to the humble local Juan Diego. Boidin focuses on the circulation of oriental and exotic tales, which became fashionable in Western European literature from the eighteenth century. She considers how exotic elements in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses – and the tale of Cupid and Psyche in particular – were imitated in early modern literature. Boidin concludes that one should appreciate the oriental tone of the Metamorphoses, but she unconvincingly proposes to see the allusion to the Greek nature of the novel in the prologue (Met. 1.1.6: fabulam Graecanicam incipimus) as a reference to fantastic, exotic narratives rather than a source adapted by Apuleius. In so doing, Boidin overlooks the Onos, a Greek version of the novel spuriously ascribed to Lucian, the mention of Lucius of Patras’ Greek Metamorphoseis in Photius, Bibl. 129 as well as the references to the lost Milesian Tales by Aristides and its (also lost) Latin translation by Sisenna (on which see, for example, S. Harrison, ‘The Milesian Tales and the Roman Novel’, in H. Hofmann and M. Zimmerman [edd.], The Groningen Colloquia on the Novel [1998], pp. 61–73, and L. Costantini, Apuleius Madaurensis. Metamorphoses, Book III [2021], pp. 5–7).
The four chapters in Section 2 deal specifically with the reception of Cupid and Psyche. Gaisser discusses various adaptations of Apuleius’ tale. She begins with an overview of the allegorised versions in Fulgentius’ Mythologiae 3.6 and in Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium 5.22, considering their changes to the Apuleian version. Then she looks at iconographic evidence inspired by Cupid and Psyche, according to Boccaccio's version, in the painted wedding chests (cassoni) produced in Florence for the Medici family around 1470–1475. Gaisser analyses the adapted translations of the story and the whole novel by Matteo Maria Boiardo in Ferrara for the house of Este during the second half of the fifteenth century, and the ensuing adaptations – and transformations – of the story of Cupid and Psyche promoted by the Este family. I. Candido starts by examining Boccaccio's glosses on the margins of the twelfth-century Cassinese MS of Apuleius, Laurentianus 29.02. As Candido notes, Boccaccio's annotations are particularly frequent in the section transmitting Cupid and Psyche. It comes as no surprise that Decameron 2.7, 2.9 and especially 10.10, i.e. the tale of Griselda, are indebted to Apuleius’ novel and to the Apologia, a defence speech Apuleius presumably delivered in 158–159 ce to reject the accusation of being a magician. Candido then explores the reception of Apuleius in the Latin adaptation of Boccaccio's story of Griselda (Decameron 10.10) by Petrarch. Petrarch was also familiar with Apuleius’ literary works and owned a MS transmitting them, which he annotated (Vat. lat. 2193). Candido persuasively shows that Petrarch recognised Apuleius’ influence on Boccaccio's tale and himself drew on Apuleius in his Latin adaptation. Harrison focuses on the playwright Thomas Heywood (c. 1570–1640), a contemporary of Shakespeare, and discusses how creatively Heywood imitates and adapts the narrative arc of Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche in his play Love's Mistress, or the Queen's Masque (1634–1635). Apuleius himself features as a character in Heywood's play, and Harrison shows that he draws on other parts of the Metamorphoses as well as other classical works. May challenges the general view that the poetess Mary Tighe (1772–1810) had no knowledge of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses outside the story of Cupid and Psyche. Tighe authored a poem in Spenserian stanzas entitled Psyche or The Legend of Love (1805). This opinion derives from Tighe's own statement in a letter; however, May casts light on further allusions to the Metamorphoses, which have hitherto gone unnoticed. Thus, May argues that Tighe's claim is meant to underscore the originality of her adaptation and to prevent any negative identification between Tighe and the crazy, drunken old lady who narrates the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius (Met. 6.25.1: delira et temulenta illa narrabat anicula).
Section 3 includes three chapters that broadly explore the literary influence of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. A. Kahane focuses on the reception of Apuleius’ works including the Peri Hermenias, the Apuleian paternity of which is uncertain, in Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii. Kahane points out that Martianus never openly refers to Apuleius, who like him was also a native of Madauros, as this would have been superfluous given Apuleius’ canonical status in late antiquity. Regarding this point, reference is made to the aforementioned studies by Carver (2007) and Gaisser (2008), though one would also have expected a mention of A. Stramaglia, ‘Apuleio come auctor’, in O. Pecere and A. Stramaglia, Studi apuleiani. Note di aggiornamento di L. Graverini (2003), pp. 119–52, 198. F. Lavocat investigates the free adaptation of the plot of Apuleius’ novel in the Italian translation by Agnolo Firenzuola (1550). As Lavocat suggests, Firenzuola modifies elements of the plot, changing the original setting into a contemporary one, and replaces the ego-narrator of the novel (i.e. Lucius-auctor according to J.J. Winkler, Auctor & Actor [1985]) with an autobiographical first-person narrator in order to highlight the originality of his translation. This complies with an affirmation of authorship that is conventional in the Renaissance. L. Núñez's contribution is devoted to the influence of Apuleius’ novel on Cervantes’ Coloquio de los perros (1613) and the use of narratives inserted within the main plot (novellas). Núñez corrects a common tendency in scholarship that downplays the importance of Apuleius in Cervantes’ work.
The final section includes two studies on the reception of Apuleius’ style during the Renaissance. C. Marsico appraises the increasing attention to Apuleius’ style, especially as attested in his novel, among Renaissance intellectuals such as Giovanni Tortelli, Lorenzo Valla and Niccolò Perotti. Although Apuleius’ style is not held in high regard by the former two humanists, Perotti devotes considerable attention to Apuleius’ unusual words in his Cornucopiae, posthumously printed in 1489. A. Severi's chapter revolves around Beroaldo's commentary on Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and the attention Beroaldo pays to the stylistic features as well as the allegorical sense of the novel. A helpful general index is printed at the end of the volume.
Despite a few minor typos and the occasional lack of formatting and spelling consistency in the chapters, the editors have brought together a strong set of contributions. These will be of value to scholars interested in Apuleius as well as in the later authors on which his influence has been recognised.
