1st Edition
Dreams and Suicides The Greek Novel from Antiquity to the Byzantine Empire
This study discusses the Greek novel through the ages, from the genre's flowering in late Antiquity to its learned revival in twelfth-century Byzantium. Its unique feature is its full coverage of the Byzantine novels, demonstrating that they both depend upon and react against the ancient novel, and can only be understood against the cultural backdrop of ancient Greek literature. Dreams and Suicides analyses the cultural symptoms and attitudes portrayed or implied in the novels, thus rooting them in a social rather than merely a literary context. For all students of ancient culture, this book provides important and original insights into the genre of ancient literature.
Biography
Suzanne MacAlister is Lecturer in Ancient Greek Literature and Classical Civilisation at the University of Sydney. She has published on dreams, gender symbolism and the novels in late Antiquity and twelfth-century Byzantium.
'This work performs a valuable service for those interested in the relationship between earlier and later Greek novels.' - Jonathan Walters, Classics Ireland
'The book is well worth reading, especially by Western medievalists who are not always aware of literary development at the other end of the Mediterranean in the generation preceding Chretien de Troyes.' - Medium Aevum
'Dreams and Suicides is an interesting book ... It will give specialists on the ancient novel plenty to think about, and raise awareness of and interest in the ancient Greek novel's Byzantine successors.' - John Birchall, Scholia Reviews
