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Currently reading the 11th book of the Golden Ass for class, overrated piece of asinine shit that it is... Apuleius now gets a 12 vol. commentary (Groningen), with each miserable expression getting about 2 pages of notes on average. That's twice as much as Kirk & Edward's HOMER. The whole thing would on my estimate weigh about 48 pounds; not at all bad for a Madurian fucking upstart. Aristonicus be damned.
Philologists and "Classicists" can't seem to get enough of him, I haven't an inkling why. His latin is as perturbed as a contortionist orgy, heaping senseless upon senseless participles, florid adjectives that you can't even tell aren't substantives half the time, almost disposing of reasonable syntax - let alone periodic structure! And of course the literature isn't worth it. All this kitschy, baroque tripe, used to express the stupidest banalities in the most roundabout way possible (like in the proem with the horse... has an entire book on it btw, from Brill); a stylistic crambe repetita that makes the Declamator's plight in Juvenal seem enviable.
But how well I would've liked for the commentators to flock around this piece just because of the linguistic difficulty and the endless use of figures. They seem to be more interested in the CONTENTS, for god's sake! What a queer thing is the academic zeitgeist. I mean, it must be his salaciousness, lack of moral standards and insipid spirituality that really gets to them.
And I guess all this talk about the Ancient Novel really serves very little else. Aren't these just all mediocre, self-indulgent romances? I concede that the Ancients' had probably achieved something far greater than the Moderns ever had with poetry, history, oratory and even plain intelligent prose; but novels were an inferior literary style, and hence what we got is worthless. Petronius might be the only one who doesn't make for an insufferable read, but even he is just so vicious.
What do you think? Would the intelligent reader really miss that much if he or she'll jump straight to Boccacio?
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