Recognitions, Silvia Montiglio states, are ‘coeval with Greek literature itself’ (3). M. offers a close reading of recognition scenes in the ancient novel. The aims are to analyse the function of the recognition scene in each novel's plot structure, to evaluate the significance of such scenes for each novel's ‘thought-world’ and to locate these scenes in the larger context of the literary tradition (8). As a platform of interpretation, M. posits a framework based on a reading of the Poetics. The analysis is not limited to Aristotle, though; there is an imaginative use of sources to illuminate the dynamics of recognition.

In ch. 1, M. provides readings of Chariton's and Xenophon's novels. One point of emphasis in Chariton is the voice as means of recognition. M. adduces earlier examples from Homer and Euripides (particularly the Alcestis) to establish Chariton's innovative use of this device; it is effective in Chariton, whereas it is ignored or excused in earlier literature. M. offers a reading of the ending that offers a solution of Callirhoe's having two worthy suitors, and the potential of an implied return of her child — and another recognition? — that may render the ending not as happy as it might seem prima facie. In Xenophon, the recognitions are convoluted and accomplished largely through servants rather than protagonists. M.'s reading suggests that Xenophon's ancient audience might have read this as ‘a parody of canonical recognitions' (51) and that the displaced agency serves to underline the passivity of hero and heroine.

The novels of Achilles Tatius and Longus are addressed in ch. 2. Leucippe and Clitophon opens as a framed narrative but does not return to the initial narrator. In M.'s analysis, the recognition scenes mirror that open-endedness within the text; there are failures of voice identification and a misidentified (because headless) corpse mistaken by Clitophon for Leucippe, all of which further M.'s concept of an author stretching ‘even the most cardinal generic conventions' (86). In the arguments concerning Daphnis and Chloe, M. invokes the comedic komos: both friend and foe are invited to the party. Here M. places emphasis on the rôle of paideia and the transformative aspects of (upwardly mobile) family recognition.

M.'s longest chapter is dedicated to the longest of the Greek novels, the Aethiopica of Heliodorus, and the complexity of interpretation matches the complexity of the richly allusive text. M. finds Homeric, new comic and tragic references throughout the multiple recognition scenes and argues that in the final and grandest of them — Chariclea's recognition by her royal Ethiopian parents — it is the tragic that is primary. Of equal importance in this scene is what M. terms ‘the call of blood’, that is the instinctive affinity that arises between close relations without necessary recourse to tokens or formal identifications. In the end, however, it is the black mark on Chariclea's white skin that clinches her identification. M. argues that this is a clue that her parents must read carefully, just as the Aethiopica itself demands a dogged reader to enjoy the literary fullness of the novel.

In the fourth chapter, M. turns a critical eye to the Latin novels. The section on Petronius is brief; ‘Petronius is not fond of recognition scenes’ (159). Much of the dark humour of Petronius derives from the main characters unsuccessfully avoiding recognition, allowing the author to ‘mock the optimistic teleology that typically underlies’ (162) such scenes. There is a much fuller treatment of Apuleius and his ‘grim worldview’ (171). M. elucidates this through the multiple recognition scenes that entail suffering for both the innocent and the guilty. M. questions the reading of Lucius’ initiation into Isis' cult as conversion narrative, since Lucius does not engage in ‘rejection of one's past self’ (181). Has Lucius really found a higher truth or has his eagerness for wonderful things been transferred from magical shape shifting to religious devotion? M. reveals a Lucius who is as poor at assimilating information as a human as he was as an ass, resulting in a lack of ‘definitive closure’ (188).

The final chapter traces the recognition theme from pagan to Jewish and early Christian narratives. For M., Apollonius of Tyre is noteworthy for recognition through autobiographical narrative instead of tokens or ‘the call of blood’, and the privileging of father-daughter over husband-wife recognition. In Joseph and Aseneth and the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, M. argues that recognitions point vertically to higher truths rather than circularly to recovery of a past identity. M. calls attention to the character of Peter in the Recognitions, identifying him as ‘stage director’ (215) and a ‘deus ex machina’ (216).

In the epilogue, M. considers the evidence of recognition scenes in some of the fragments, as well as a look at the continuity of the recognition motif in early modern Western literature. M.'s monograph is an excellent analysis of a neglected theme of the ancient novel. As such, it also invites dialogue. If ‘voice as the revealing sign of identity in a formal recognition scene seems to be unknown in classical literature’ (20), what are we to make of Aesch., Cho. 562–3, where Orestes decides to put on a phony accent to avoid detection at the palace gates? If Heliodorus is ‘the first pagan author to assert the strength of [the call of blood] in … a generalizing pronouncement, in addition to showing it at work’ (135), what do we make of Seneca's Thyestes? Does the public recognition of Daphnis and Chloe truly ‘silence the couple's final whispers’ (105), when it is not, in fact, Chloe's final transformation from ignorance to knowledge? But all good analyses provoke such questions and M.'s is a fine contribution to the body of scholarship on the novel.