Apuleius

"With accuracy, wit, and intelligence, this remarkable new translation of The Golden Ass breathes new life into Apuleius's classic work. Sarah Ruden, a lyric poet as well as a highly respected translator, skillfully duplicates the verbal high jinks of Apuleius's ever-popular novel. It tells the story of Lucius, a curious and silly young man, who is turned into a donkey when he meddles with witchcraft. Doomed to wander from region to region and mistreated...

The first known record of the the poignant tale of Psyche's labors to reclaim the love of Cupid is recorded by Lucius Apuleius in the second century AD. When the beautiful Psyche attracts the jealous wrath of Venus, Venus sends her son Cupid to bewitch the girl and cause her to fall in love with a monster, but Cupid himself falls in love with his mother's nemesis and secretly becomes her husband. Psyche is instructed that she must never look at

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"Apuleius, one of the great stylists of Latin literature, was born ca. 125 AD in Madauros to a politically prominent family and received an elite education in the provincial capital Carthage and at Athens, where he began a lifelong allegiance to Platonic philosophy. In the later 150s, he married Pudentilla of Oea, a wealthy widow, and seems to have enjoyed a distinguished public career in Africa and perhaps as an advocate in Rome. Although Apuleius...

This book has two general aims: to provide materials for the teaching of discursive writing, and to give students a broad, various acquaintance with their cultural heritage. Each of the ninety-three selections is followed by a set of analytical questions that explore both the substance of the piece and its rhetorical strategies, for discussion or written exercises.