Love and Death, Fantasy and Magic: The Greek and Roman Novel

Star-crossed lovers, pirates, magic, show trials, faked deaths, talking animals, exotic lands, fantastic machines, and happy endings. All these and more characterize the most sensational genre of ancient literature, the prose fiction that was composed in Greek and Latin in the first few centuries CE. Scholars often call these works "ancient novels," and they have been read enthusiastically from antiquity until today. In this class, we will consider the historical and social context of the novels and will learn to interpret and critique them with regard to narrative, style, rhetoric, and characterization.