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The Similarities Between Lucius And The Tale Of Cupid And Psyche?

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Many historical and mythological accounts of Graeco-Roman history in the classical period, involved tales of magic, worship of the gods, and emphasised the value society placed on devotion to religion. These societal beliefs and practices became evident in the literature of Greek and Roman societies, where its use, reach, and consequences was illustrated. In the only surviving Roman novel of the 2nd century AD, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, readers encounter a Greek nobleman, named Lucius, whose insatiable curiosity leads him to explore magic. His over-enthusiasm to intimately experience and learn about magic, accidentally causes his transformation into an ass, causing him to be subjected to a range of vulgar, exploitive, and lustful debaucheries on his path to become human again.
This essay will explore how Lucius’s insatiable curiosity and thirst for forbidden knowledge causes him to become a victim of magic, and how religion delivers him from its dangerous realms. Finally, this essay will comment on the contested approaches to interpreting the final book of the novel.

In Books I-X of the novel, Lucius, the protagonist, is revealed to have an incredible curiosity of forbidden knowledge, and that adds to his determinism to experience magic himself. It is important to consider the contents of this part of the novel, in…show more content…
Psyche uses her sight to satisfy her curiosity about what her husband looks like, and by looking what is in Proserpina’s box. Similar to this, Lucius uses his sight to observe Pamphile’s magic, and his hearing to listen to and indulge in stories involving magic. Psyche, however, fell in love with Cupid, but Lucius ultimately only used Photis as a way to satisfy his thirst for magic, and forbidden
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