1. The Life of Apuleius -- 2. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius -- 3. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche -- 4. Three French Versions of Beauty and the Beast -- 5. The Beast Goes to the Movies -- 6. Happily Ever After -- App. 1. Ni Amor se libra de amor -- App. 2. The First Fairy Tale: A Retelling
Summary
"The Metamorphosis of Apuleius traces two millennia of changes in the major inserted tale in the second century Metamorphoses (or Golden Ass), the only classical Latin novel to survive in a complete text. This most charming "Tale of Cupid and Psyche" was both popular in its own day and became the subject of allegorical intepretation into the Dark Ages. However, it became lost in the Middle Ages, probably in part because of the parent novel's fairly explicit eroticism and militant paganism (not counting its possible anti-Christian jibes). Resurfacing in the Renaissance from a single surviving manuscript, it again became the subject of allegorization and spawned a large number of translations and adaptations which have continued up to the present day, with C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces being only one of the more notable recent retellings."--BOOK JACKET
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-319) and index
