Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Apuleius Metamorphoses - 9780472133055

Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Apuleius MetamorphosesAuthor(s): Evelyn Adkins\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: The University of Michigan Press, United States\nImprint: The University of Michigan Press\nISBN-13: 9780472133055, 978-0472133055\nSynopsis\nIn ancient Rome, where literacy was limited and speech was the main medium used to communicate status and identity face-to-face in daily life, an education in rhetoric was a valuable form of cultural capital and a key signifier of elite male identity. To lose the ability to speak would have caused one to be viewed as no longer elite, no longer a man, and perhaps even no longer human. We see such a fantasy horror story played out in the Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, written by Roman North African author, orator, and philosopher Apuleius of Madaurosthe only novel in Latin to survive in its entirety from antiquity. In the novels first-person narrative as well as its famous inset tales such as the Tale of Cupid and Psyche, the Metamor.