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)
- 26-Jan. Pages 13 ("Preface")-57. (Note that you're only reading the odd-numbered pages.)
- Short Writing Assignment (SWA) prompt, very subjective this time, not particularly critical-analytical: Write 100-200 words conveying your impressions of the text. For instance, what kinds of stories/films/anything does it remind you of? What's different about it? Really, anything, provided it has to do with the reading. (Just a reminder that for these SWAs, we're working on our writing. Please don't use AI for any part of it: I want to read you, not some robot. Plus, how can I help you with your writing if there's nothing there of you for me to comment on? For more on SWAs, see the Syllabus.
- 28-Jan. Pages 59-117 ("He made many other trips on various pretexts, and so their winter was not entirely without love").
- SWA prompt, this time, more critical-analytical: Write 100-200 words (that will always be the word-count range for SWAs) on competition in this part of D&C (pp. 59-117) — think of it as if looking through a lens to clarify and reveal things. Critical-thinking (CT) part: What does competition as lens bring into focus, what does it reveal? What does it miss?
- 2-Feb. Pages 117 ("Now spring was beginning")-197.
- SWA prompt, again and as always henceforward, more critical-analytical than that first prompt: How does status figure into D&C? Is this just a bucolic idyll, lazy, carefree afternoons playing games and napping on the grass, or by the end of the novel do social-econonic realities begin to matter? Is that either/or simplistic — how (if at all) does the idyllic relate to the social in D&C?
Study Guide Proper
Genre, Rhetoric, RFG Elements
Daphnis and Chloe (D&C) exemplifies ancient Greek prose romance. We call it a novel, though we can't be sure if ancient Greek had a dedicated term for the genre. In any case, D&C, like most of the ancient evidence for long-form prose fiction in Greek, follows a typical pattern: boy and girl meet, fall in love, marry, though not without undergoing the requisite trials and tribulations. D&C also self-consciously evokes the Greek past, sort of the way we might experience a trip to a museum, only in this case, a literary museum, one with echoes of, and allusions to, the classics of earlier 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). Some would argue that the book sets out to negotiate Greek identity under Rome, a topic to which we will return. For now, we note that D&C shows affinities with other cultural production that we'll be looking at in this course: Alciphron's Letters; Lucian's essays, satires, and declamations (dramatic monologues of a rhetorical character); perhaps even the Skala villa with its envy mosaic.
Keeping with the theme of Greek Rhetoric under Roman rule, Tim Whitmarsh, in his book, The Second Sophistic, charts out areas of overlap between the Greek novel and the sorts of fictitious speeches that Greek orators, or "sophistis," of the Imperial age were in the habit of composing and performing. Here I quote / summarize / expand upon Whitmarsh pages 86-89:
- ". . . sophistic declamations . . . and novels 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 (contests of various sorts), 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 story featuring a pair of (heteroerotic) lovers; cultivated, rhetorical PROSE; adventure (pirates, etc.); suspense.
Bucolic: I.e., a story of herders in the countryside (the tending of animals, competitive singing-playing, erotic themes). Bucolic was already an established genre of poetry, so bucolic elements in D&C represent an important evocation of past literature.
SETTING. The setting is the island of Lesbos, off the coast of northwestern Turkey, and in the neighborhood of its most important city, Mytilene. Lesbos is the island from which Sappho, the preeminent love poet of antiquity, haled. 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 herders/tillers of the soil in D&C are slaves or at least peasants of non-elite status (free peasants: Chromis, possibly Dorco and Lampis; Daphnis and Chloe will turn out to be of elite, free status) — how might that be significant for our interpretation of the work?
- Daphnis: A herder; his is a conventional herder's name in bucolic poetry. ("And to ensure that the child's name should sound adequately pastoral ....") Reared by Lamo (or 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")
- Dorco (or Dorcon): In Greek, "Roe-Deer," the Greek for which is dorkōn/dorkas, a species so-called from its large eyes (from the verb dedorkenai, "to gaze"). Our Dorco 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 Philitas/Philetas of Cos (born ca. 340 BCE) who for a time taught/was mentor to Theocritus, the bucolic poet. Our Philetas also teaches, in a sense, our lovers — how? We learn that Philetas fell in love with, and has had children by, Amaryllis ("Sparkling"), a pastoral name in ancient authors. Philetas and Anaryllis have a son, Tityros ("short-tailed ape"? "he-goat"?)
- Philetas narrates his run-in with a beautiful boy in his, Philetas', garden. That boy is Eros, the winged god of love and sex. He is eternally young, yet older even than the universe; as such, he recalls both the Eros of Hesiod's Theogony and the Eros of Plato's Synposium. He it is who shepherds Daphnis and Chloe as a couple
- Bryaxis: ("Swelling"? "Teeming"? Or related to an epithet [Bruaktēs] for Pan? There are enough theories for this name that none are very compelling.) The name of the Methymnian general leading an expedition against the Mytilenian country folk on the island of Lesbos
- Lycaenium: A woman from town, sexual partner of 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")
- Gnatho (or Gnathon): "Jaw-Man," "Ravenous Mouth." Astylus' sidekick, Gnathon plays the role of a parasite (the Greek is parasitos), someone who relies on a wealthy patron for his sustenance. Gnathon also lusts after Daphnis