The Golden Ass

Eros: Female Souls Thriving and Crumbling The term “Eros,” referring to passionate love in English, has long been the mainstream of themes in drama, literature, arts, and cinematic media. The fascinating power of love has been exhaustively publicized, and the pursuit of love is diffused in streets and lanes. Conversely, in ancient times, many poets, especially Virgil, Ovid and Apuleius, described eros as such an evil spirit that it will destroy the female soul thoroughly, except for the one in

One major difference Apuleius makes in his depiction of Psyche is that he places a premise in her original encounter with Cupid – she is not allowed to know his identity nor to see his face. The sequence of Psyche’s acquaintance with her lover, in fact, plays quite an important role in the story. People often say that, “To see is to believe.” However, it is not always the case. Under the circumstance of love, what one sees will be highly deceptive, as it is human nature that one will prefer individuals

The American Dream is the phrase and trademark of American society today that many hope to achieve in some point in their lives. In Hunter S. Thompson’s novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, readers follow Thompson depicted as Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo in hoping to find the American Dream. It uses Gonzo Journalism, a style that is an adaption of Picaresque narrative to document his drug-induced experiences traveling through 1970’s Las Vegas. The Picaresque novels are composed of first-person

In Grimmelshausen’s novel, Simplicissimus, the protagonist of the same name takes on a much different position than seen in other picaresque novels. Simplicissimus becomes a master, employing his own servants and gains a legitimate position in society. In the novel Lazarillo de Tormes the protagonist is always serving someone else’s interests. Lazarillo never has complete autonomy and must rely on others for employment and to further his social status. Simplicissimus does not fit this picaresque

Literature changes history. Some works identify cultural criticism. Some works show how the past illuminates and shapes the present. Some works critique the American dream. These masterpieces educate, scold, and entertain an audience simultaneously. Samuel Clemens, more popularly known as Mark Twain, strives to challenge the accepted in his book “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. This tale of adventure, work of comic satire, sarcasm, and social ridicule which stands as an sincere critique of progress

The two different worlds the factory and the academy David Lodge presents the two main characters namely Vic Wilcox ,not actually a religious man and Robyn Penrose the opposite, a bright woman , a lecturer and a feminist. The two realize that they complete themselves and they end up being in a relationship. The novel is a contemporary novel . The author presents Robyn as a woman not that clever that she thinks she is. She is not as smart as she want to be and that is why she is unable to feel

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

The Story of Cupid and Psyche first appeared in the book Metamorphoses by Apuleius, written between 124-170 AD. The story deals with many themes prevalent in tales from classical antiquity, including love, challenging trials, and interference from the gods. It tells the tale of a love story between a mortal woman and a god. Psyche is the youngest daughter of an unnamed king and queen, renowned for her beauty, while Cupid (also known as Eros in Roman mythology) is the son of the goddess Venus, and

The Golden Ass is the only novel that has endured from the classical Roman Empire. Written by Apuleius towards the end of the second century AD, this novel has been a blessing for the modern world for two reasons: first, it is a tool which offers today’s society perspective into the Roman way of life; second, it provides insight into what the Romans deemed important two thousand years ago. Generations of authors have been inspired by the book’s literary elements, such as the development of characters

Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast” and Apuleius’s “Cupid and Psyche” both use a pair of sisters as a shadow figure to the beauty in the story. A shadow figure is a term used from Carl Jung’s “Process of Individuation”, that describes the character who impedes on beauty’s growth is a shadow character. The sisters in both stories hold features that beauty should gain in the end, such as marriage, being confident, and wanting more for herself. The sisters also hold features that