Myth and narrative in the Greek novels

Thesis

This dissertation investigates how Greek myth is received and reinterpreted by the Greeknovelists of the 1st to 4th centuries C.E. My core texts are the five 'ideal' Greek novels:Chariton's Callirhoe, Xenophon of Ephesus' Anthia and Habrocomes, Longus' Daphnis andChloe, Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Cleitophon, and Heliodorus' Aethiopica; occasionally Irefer to some of the fragmentary novels too. These novels are characterised by their genericand thematic unity, describing a boy-girl love and adventure story. The novel's plot does notcoincide with any of the previous classical mythological examples, although it makes ampleuse of them.

My research is original in that it presents a new interpretation of myth from a structural, notsimply intertextual, point of view. My aim is to study the articulation of what I call 'thenovelistic myth', the main story around which the Greek novels are woven. The thesisanalyses the uses of terms such as 'myth', 'plot', and 'narrative' in the Greek novels andargues that the term 'myth' means at the same time: (i) a tale from mythology, oftencontradictory to truth; (ii) a dramatic plot, which structures specific chapters of the novel thatare presented as dramas and which are mainly influenced by Euripides' Helen, Hippolytoi,and Iphigeniai; and (iii) the novelistic narrative as an extensive recognition pattern, inspiredby the Odyssey.

To conclude, the dissertation builds on the last ten years of intertextual research, proposing anew categorisation and organisation of myth around its three meanings. Moreover, itsuggests a more precise use of intertextuality that connects it with structural interpretation,while taking into consideration the point of view of ancient literary criticism. The aim is todraw the boundaries between the different genres (epic, tragedy and the novel) withoutletting them lose their generic autonomy.

Authors: Lefteratou, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-jbngrvbkr
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English