Introduction
This online publication offers the text of Apuleius' Metamorphoses, along with the acclaimed Groningen Commentary Series to this text. Additionally, the texts of Pro se de Magia and Florida are included, as well as commentaries for both works by Vincent Hunink.
Metamorphoses
Apuleius of Madauros wrote his eleven books of the Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass) in the late second century CE. It is the first fully extant specimen of an extended Latin work of prose fiction. It is written in a Latin which on the one hand shows elements of the the everyday speech and of the colloquial language of the period, but on the other hand incorporates these elements in a sophisticated prose which bears the more general characteristics of an archaizing artificial language. For the study of Latin prose art as well as of the development of everyday or colloquial Latin this work is an important monument, representative of the Latin prose art of the period. Apart from a purely philological and linguistic point of view, this work is equally important for the study of the development of Latin and European Literature. Virtually lost during the Middle Ages, the Metamorphoses came to be known and imitated from the fourteenth century onwards, and has undoubtedly played an important role during the emergence of the novelistic literature of Western Europe.
The acclaimed Groningen commentary to the Metamorphoses was published as a multi-volume book series between 1981 and 2021 by the Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius group. It includes the text itself, a commentary and a translation. It is now available online for the first time.
In print, the Groningen commentary is also available as a set and as separate volumes under the series Apuleius Madaurensis. It contains the following volumes:
Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses, Book I
Text, Introduction and Commentary
By: W.H. Keulen
Publication Date: 01 Jul 2007
978-90-69-80154-4
Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses, Livre II
Texte, Introduction et Commentaire
By: Danielle van Mal-Maeder
Publication Date: 01 Jul 2001
978-90-69-80130-8
Metamorphoses III
By: Dr. L. Costantini
Publication Date: 23 Sep 2021
978-90-04-47036-1
Apuleius Metamorphoses IV, 1-27
By: B.L. Hijmans Jr., R.Th. van der Paardt, V. Schmidt, C.B.J. Settels, B. Wesseling, R.E.H. Westendorp Boerma
Publication Date: 01 Jan 1977
978-90-6088-059-3
Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses, Books IV 28-35, V and VI 1-24
The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Text, Introduction and Commentary
By: Maaike Zimmerman, Stelios Panayotakis, Vincent Hunink, W.H. Keulen. S.J. Harrison, Thomas D. McCreight, B. Wesseling and Danielle van Mal-Maeder
Publication Date: 01 Jul 2004
978-90-69-80146-9
Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses, Books VI 25-32 and VII
Text, Introduction and Commentary
By: B.L. Hijmans Jr., R.Th. van der Paardt, V. Schmidt, R.E.H. Westendorp Boerma and A.G. Westerbrink
Publication Date: 01 Jul 1981
978-90-60-88079-1
Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses, Book VIII
Text, Introduction and Commentary
By: B.L. Hijmans Jr., R.Th. van der Paardt, V. Schmidt, C.B.J. Settels, B. Wesseling, R.E.H. Westendorp Boerma
Publication Date: 01 Jul 1985
978-90-69-80005-9
Metamorphoses IX
Text, Introduction and Commentary
By: B.L. Hijmans Jr., R.Th. van der Paardt, V. Schmidt, B. Wesseling, M. Zimmerman
Publication Date: 01 Jul 1995
978-90-6980-085-3
Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses, Book X
Text, Introduction and Commentary
By: Maaike Zimmerman
Publication Date: 01 Jul 2000
978-90-69-80128-5
Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses, Book XI, The Isis Book
Text, Introduction and Commentary
Editor(s): W.H. Keulen and Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser
Publication Date: 17 Dec 2014
978-90-04-26920-0
Florida
Florida is a collection of tenty-three excerpts of epideictic speeches, and offers a unique example of Roman demonstrative rhetoric. In these speeches we see Apuleius performing before great audiences in the same fashion as contemporaneous Greek sophists, and even in the theatre of Carthage. The speaker's wide literary talents, his education and career, and his excellent relations with Carthage and the audience at large, are all put on display with manifest pride. This makes the Florida an indispensable text for anyone interested in second century Latin literature, Second Sophistic, culture and education in Roman Africa, or the author Apuleius himself.
Vincent Hunink has now edited the Florida with an extensive English commentary, in which the literary and rhetorical features of the text are extensively explored.
This text and commentary have been published in print in 2001 as Apuleius of Madauros, Florida, edited by Vincent Hunink. It is now available online for the first time.
Pro se de magia (or Apologia)
Apuleius' speech Pro Se De Magia is a unique example of 2nd century Roman oratory and a literary masterpiece of the Second Sophistic. On this fascinating speech, no other contemporary commentary in English is available. The editor, Vincent Hunink, pays special attention to the speaker's rhetorical strategies and the rich literary texture of the speech.
This text and commentary have been published in print in 1997 as Apuleius of Madauros, Pro se de magia. A New Edition with Commentary by Vincent Hunink. It is now available online for the first time.