The Golden Ass: Or, A Book of Changes

Description

Relihan uses rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, the occasional archaism, and devices of punctuation and typography, to create a sparkling, readable translation of Apuleius' great work that reproduces something of the linguistic and comic effects of the original Latin. A concise Introduction, judicious notes, and an Index of Motifs facilitate an appreciation of this parody of the ideal Greek romance.

Joel C. Relihan is Professor of Classics, Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.

Relihan is an American Euphues. I like everything about this edition from the title page to the index. The translation is magnificent. --Stanley Lombardo, Department of Classics, University of Kansas This is easily the best English translation of The Golden Ass . I find that undergraduates with little or no knowledge of classical literature or the Greco-Roman world can readily read and enjoy it--as accessible as Graves or Ruden, but much more true to Apuleius's text and sensibility. Relihan's introduction is a great distillation of scholarly commentary--superb in all aspects. --Robin Walz, University of Alaska Southeast I've been teaching Apuleius' The Golden Ass off and on for thirty years, first at Dartmouth College and now at Carleton College. Our problem--that shared by all of us who treasure this great romance or novel from late antiquity--has always been translations of The Golden Ass . There's nothing terribly wrong with previous translations; but none captures the wit and candor of Apuleius until now. This term, I used the new translation by Joel Relihan in a Carleton course and the results were beyond my very lofty expectations: students, for the first time, had something close to direct access to Apuleius' prose and they responded with an enthusiasm I've never encountered before. Relihan has given Apuleius a voice in English as never before, and my students and I laughed out loud, often, in reading passages aloud, and we felt the power of Apuleius' wit and open vulgarity. Relihan's translation will be one that many of us will use again and again in the years and decades ahead. ---Robert A. Oden, Jr., Professor of Religion, President of Carleton College