Text Access
Henderson, Jeffrey. 2009. Longus. Daphnis and Chloe. Xenophon of Ephesus. Anthia and Habrocomes, Loeb Classical Library; 69. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
D&C is found on pages 12-197. It is freely available to you online via the Loeb Classical Library (and our library).
Assignment Page Ranges (by class meeting)
- 30-Mar. Pages 12 ("Preface")-57.
- 11-Apr. Pages 59-133 (through "Chloe wondered about this but was too modest to ask the reason why").
- 18-Apr. Pages 133 bottom ("This summer there was a throng of suitors around Chloe")-197.
Quiz Response Prompt (for all three D&C class meetings)
The following will be the guiding question for Daphnis and Chloe. It will also be the final exam essay question:
For much of the course, we've been viewing things through a kind of "race for glory" lens, one that focuses on how the impulse to stand out, to win, shaped Eastern Imperial cultural production (writings, art, etc.). But does such a lens bring everything into focus? What insights become possible when we switch out the lens for something else?
We're not abandoning altogether the race-for-glory lens, but starting with Daphnis and Chloe, we'll want to see what insights come from looking outside its field of view. We'll do that for each of the page ranges assigned for each of the three D&C-dedicated classes.
Links to Brightspace "Quizzes" (journal entries)
Study Guide Proper
Genre, Rhetoric, RFG Elements
Daphnis and Chloe exemplifies ancient Greek prose romance, the modern term for which is novel. Like all such novels in Greek, it follows a typical pattern: boy and girl meet, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl marry — though not without undergoing the requisite trials and tribulations to make things interesting. D&C also self-consciously evokes the Greek past, sort of the way we might experience a trip to a museum, with evocations of the classics of ancient Greek literature.
But it dates from a period when Greeks would have long been used to Roman domination and cultural influence — when, in fact, all free subjects of Rome (Greeks, etc.) either already were, or soon would be, Roman citizens (Caracalla's citizenship edict of 212 CE). So could it be that this work presents us with a melange of Greco-Roman, late-antique values, protocols, ideologies?
Modern critics call Daphnis and Chloe a novel, and rightly so: it's long-form prose fiction. As fiction, it's like much else that we've read, including Alciphron's Letters, Lucian, and declamation. Are there, though, deeper affinities between this novel and other texts we've studied, not just declamations, but works like Polemon's Physiognomy? Even with the Skala villa that we've studied?
Tim Whitmarsh, in his book, The Second Sophistic, asks pretty much that very question (page 86). He then charts out the areas of overlap that he sees as important (pages 86-89). Here I quote / summarize / expand upon Whitmarsh:
- ". . . sophistic declamations . . . and novels [D&C isn't the only such work of longer fiction in Greek from the Imperial period] alike make use of fictional scenarios, often with erotic or sentimental themes."
- "Both genres [declamation and novel] required artful narrative skills."
- Both genres could, and often did, set their narratives "in a historically hazy world that is remarkably close to what Donald Russell calls 'Sophistopolis' " — a sense of a time past, with assemblies, courts, etc. as in classical Athens, but also with hierarchical social and political structures, rule by aristocrats, etc., as in Roman times.
- Both genres could feature agonistic scenes, set speeches, displays of rhetoric, and evocations of all kinds of earlier literature.
- Both genres could emphasize their own novelty and originality.
Daphnis and Chloe: Background
DATE. Probably/arguably 200s CE (the date remains controversial)
AUTHOR. Called "Longus" in the manuscripts, he is otherwise an unknown figure.
GENRE. Novel: Aka romance. I.e., a love story featuring a pair of (heteroerotic) lovers; cultivated, rhetorical PROSE; adventure (pirates, etc.); suspense
Bucolic: I.e., a story of herders in the countryside (competitive singing-playing, erotic themes). Bucolic was already an established genre of poetry, so bucolic elements of the story, which are extremely prominent, in themselves represent and important evocation of past literature (see point 4, above).
SETTING. The setting is the island of Lesbos, in the neighborhood of its most important city, Mytilene. Lesbos is the island from which Sappho, the preeminent love poet of antiquity, comes. It is, then, an "island of love," almost as if in a reality show — again, an evocation of past literature.
CHARACTERS. Note that most of the characters are slaves — how might that be significant for our interpretation of the work? (Here we're thinking in terms of social class.)
- Daphnis: A herder; his name is a conventional herder's name in bucolic poetry. ("And to ensure that the child's name should sound adequately pastoral ....") Reared by Lamon and Myrtale
- Chloe: Also a herder. Her name means "green young shoot" or "foliage." Reared by Dryas ("Man of the Woods") and Nape ("Woodland Glade").
- Dorcon: In Greek, "Roe-Deer," called dorkon/dorkas, a species so-called from its large eyes (from the verb dedorkenai, "to gaze"). Our Dorcon is another herder, and, for a while, a rival to Daphnis. His name represents him as getting an eyeful of Chloe, i.e., as a kind of embodiment of the desiring gaze.
- Philetas: An older herder, he has the same name as the Philetas who was teacher to Theocritus, the bucolic poet. Our Philetas also teaches, in a sense, our lovers — how? He fell in love with, and had children by, Amaryllis ("Sparkling"), a pastoral name in ancient authors. He has a son, Tityros ("short-tailed ape"? "he-goat"?).
- Bryaxis: ("Swelling"? "Teeming"? Or a name related to an epithet [Bruaktēs, "The Jolly God"] for Pan?) The Name of the Methymnian general leading an expedition against the Mytilenian country folk on the island of Lesbos.
- Lycaenion: A woman from town, wife to the rather old, but evidently free, Chromis. Her name means "Little She-Wolf." Note that in Latin and Greek, words for "wolf" could refer to sex workers.
- Lampis: Another herder, and another rival to Daphnis. How does he figure into things?
- Astylus: "Urbane," "City Slicker," son of Daphnis' master, Dionysophanes ("manifestation of Dionysus"), who is married to Cleariste ("she of noble fame").
- Gnathon: "Ravenous Mouth," Astylus' sidekick (the Greek word for "sidekick" is parasitos, and yes, he is rather parasitic).
Study Questions (in addition to the above)
As one of our class exercises will be to write ekphrases, descriptive passages, pay attention to any such passages in the novel, for instance (and most notably), the opening Prologue. How are they structured? What do they seem to seek to accomplish, and how do they seem to seek to go about it? So they at all activate or explore themes apart from, or on top of, those specific to the description of beautiful or otherwise notable objects?