Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and HyperrealityThis book offers a captivating new interpretation of Lucian as a fictional theorist and writer to stand alongside the novelists of the day, bringing to bear on his works a whole new set of reading strategies. It argues that the aesthetic and cultural issues Lucian faced, in a world of mimesis and replication, were akin to those found in postmodern contexts: the ubiquity of the fake, the erasure of origins, the focus on the freakish and weird at the expense of the traditional. In addition to exploring the texture of Lucian's own writing, Dr ní Mheallaigh uses Lucian as a focal point through which to examine other fictional texts of the period, including Antonius Diogenes' The Incredible Things Beyond Thule, Dictys' Journal of the Trojan War and Ptolemy Chennus' Novel History, and reveals the importance of fiction's engagement with its contemporary culture of writing, entertainment and wonder. |
Contents
microfiction and the Greek novel | 39 |
philosophy of fiction drama of reading | 72 |
metamorphoses of the reader from | 108 |
adventures at the edge of the text | 144 |
travels in hyperreality | 206 |
fiction and the wonderculture of the Roman | 261 |
278 | |
299 | |
Other editions - View all
Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and Hyperreality Karen ní Mheallaigh Limited preview - 2014 |
Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and Hyperreality Karen ní Mheallaigh No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
Achilles Tatius ancient antiquity Antonius Diogenes Apuleius argues ass-novel authenticity author’s name Blessed Callirhoe Chaereas chapter Chariton contemporary Ctesias culture Daphnis and Chloe Deinias dialogue Dictys Dionysius discussion dramatizes Eco’s encounter episode erotic Ethiopian Eucrates experience explores fake fantasy fictional world genre Goldhill Greek novels Heliodorus Herodotus Homer hybrid hyperreality imperial period incredible things inscription intertextual Isle letter Leucippe and Clitophon lies literary literature Longus Lucian Lucius lunar M¨ollendorff 2000 metafictional metaliterary Metamorphoses metaphor microfictions mim¯esis mimetic mirror Mnesippus Moon narrative narrator novelistic Odysseus Onos paradoxical peritext Philops Philopseudes philosophers Philostratus Photius Plato plot poet postmodern preface prologue Prometheus pseudo-documentary Ptolemy Ptolemy’s reader reader’s reading reality role Roman Romm s)he Scythian semiotic sexual story-world tainia text’s textual Thessalus things beyond Thule Töv Toxaris tradition treatise True stories truth Tychiades Vine-women Whitmarsh 2001 Winkler yöp Zeitlin δὲ καὶ τὸ