Apuleius in France: La Fontaine’s Psyché and its Apuleian Model
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Stephen Harrison
Abstract
This essay examines Jean de La Fontaine’s Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon of 1669 and its adaptation into French and a contemporary cultural setting of the celebrated two-book inserted tale of Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius’ Latin novel Metamorphoses (Apul. Met. 4.28-6.24). In La Fontaine’s adaptation, the story of Cupid and Psyche is much expanded, and surrounded by a frame narrative of four friends in contemporary Paris, who go to the palace-park of Versailles (then under construction) to hear one of them tell the story of Cupid and Psyche. Though it plainly seeks royal patronage by praising Versailles, Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon may have a further contemporary colour in recalling in both its setting and its characters La Fontaine’s previous patron, the disgraced and imprisoned royal minister Nicholas Fouquet. La Fontaine clearly knew Latin well (he writes translations and versions of a number of Latin episodes in his famous Fables) and there seems little doubt that he could have read Apuleius’ Latin directly. His adaptation has a number of interesting features when laid alongside the original, done here in considerable detail which shows exactly where additions (mostly) and omissions (sometimes) occur in the transition to the French version. The suggestion is made that Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon shows knowledge of all the three Greek novels then available in France. It represents La Fontaine’s most sustained engagement with a classical text and looks forward to his role as one of the key defenders of classical literature in the later Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes of the 1680s and 1690s, anticipating his Épître à Huet (1687) in which he made the case for the superiority of ancient poets over their modern counterparts, and the later controversy between himself and Charles Perrault, who attacked Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon for its classicism in the preface to his famous Contes of 1694, usually reckoned to be the first modern collection of fairy tales. Though Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon has never been appreciated as much as the Fables, its symbolic status as La Fontaine’s most classicising work was understood at the time, and its manipulative reception of Apuleius’ tale merits the attention of classical scholars.
Abstract
This essay examines Jean de La Fontaine’s Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon of 1669 and its adaptation into French and a contemporary cultural setting of the celebrated two-book inserted tale of Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius’ Latin novel Metamorphoses (Apul. Met. 4.28-6.24). In La Fontaine’s adaptation, the story of Cupid and Psyche is much expanded, and surrounded by a frame narrative of four friends in contemporary Paris, who go to the palace-park of Versailles (then under construction) to hear one of them tell the story of Cupid and Psyche. Though it plainly seeks royal patronage by praising Versailles, Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon may have a further contemporary colour in recalling in both its setting and its characters La Fontaine’s previous patron, the disgraced and imprisoned royal minister Nicholas Fouquet. La Fontaine clearly knew Latin well (he writes translations and versions of a number of Latin episodes in his famous Fables) and there seems little doubt that he could have read Apuleius’ Latin directly. His adaptation has a number of interesting features when laid alongside the original, done here in considerable detail which shows exactly where additions (mostly) and omissions (sometimes) occur in the transition to the French version. The suggestion is made that Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon shows knowledge of all the three Greek novels then available in France. It represents La Fontaine’s most sustained engagement with a classical text and looks forward to his role as one of the key defenders of classical literature in the later Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes of the 1680s and 1690s, anticipating his Épître à Huet (1687) in which he made the case for the superiority of ancient poets over their modern counterparts, and the later controversy between himself and Charles Perrault, who attacked Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon for its classicism in the preface to his famous Contes of 1694, usually reckoned to be the first modern collection of fairy tales. Though Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon has never been appreciated as much as the Fables, its symbolic status as La Fontaine’s most classicising work was understood at the time, and its manipulative reception of Apuleius’ tale merits the attention of classical scholars.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Inhalt VII
- Vorwort XI
- Laudatio XIII
- Kurzvita XVII
- Schriftenverzeichnis von Christiane Reitz XIX
- Tabula gratulatoria XXVII
- Autorenverzeichnis XXXIII
-
Teil I: Die Tradition der epischen Dichtung von Homer bis Milton: Ambivalentes Heldentum und der epische Raum
- Einleitung 3
- Phoinix über die Verblendung des Helden 7
- Aeneas and Octavian: The Sharing of Epic Identity 37
- Resonantia saxa – Scylla und die Mauern von Megara (Ov. Met. 8.6–154) 71
- Iterum Philippi. La ‘doppiezza di Filippi’ da Virgilio a Lucano 91
- „Zweimal Emathien“: Das Proöm zu Lucans Bellum Ciuile und die Georgica Vergils 121
- Killed by Friendly Fire. Divine Scheming and Fatal Miscommunication in Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus Episode 145
- La mort de Tydée dans la Thébaïde de Stace 181
- Regulus and the Inconsistencies of Fame in Silius Italicus’ Punica 201
- The Vertical Axis in Classical and Post- Classical Epic 219
-
Teil II: Literarische Autorität: Dichter, Gattungskonventionen und Erneuerung
- Einleitung 241
- Numerosus Horatius. Metren und inhaltliche Bezüge im ersten Odenbuch des Horaz 245
- The Po(e)ts and Pens of Persius’ Third Satire (The Waters of Roman Satire, Part 2) 267
- Schlaflos mit Kallimachos. Eine Interpretation von Stat. Silv. 5.4 285
- Enthüllte Göttinnen. Der Blick des Dichters (Ovid und Kallimachos) 311
- Macht und Übermacht der Tradition. Dichterkataloge in der lateinischen Literatur von Ovid bis Sidonius 335
- Der Mythos von Orpheus und Eurydice bei Ovid und Boethius 359
- Apuleius in France: La Fontaine’s Psyché and its Apuleian Model 385
- Rote Schafe, Goldene Zeit. Ein märchenhaftes Motiv bei Homer, Vergil und Voltaire 401
- Eduard Mörikes Roman von Cerinthus und Sulpicia 419
-
Teil III: Wissensvermittlung in Text und Bild: Rhetorische Exemplarität und didaktische exempla
- Einleitung 449
- nempe exemplis discimus. Tradition und Beispiel bei Phaedrus (3.9) 455
- The Poetry of Animals in Love. A Reading of Oppian’s Halieutica and Cynegetica 473
- Beyond the Fence. Columella’s Garden 501
- Zur Vereinbarkeit von ratio und reuerentia in Columellas Umgang mit Vergil 515
- A Lesson from the East: A New Pattern of Virility in Ovid’s Fasti 547
- Mit Alexander dem Großen und Albinovanus Pedo am Ende der Welt 575
- The ‘Controversial’ Continence of Scipio in Literature and Art: Gellius’ Noctes Atticae and Nicolò dell’Abate 595
- Titi summa clementia. Unbeachtete Zeugen für ein sprichwörtliches Herrscherbild 617
- Disertus vel desertus (Aug. Conf. 2.3.5) 637
- The Endeavours and exempla of the German Refugee Classicists Eva Lehmann Fiesel and Ruth Fiesel 655
- Bibliography 689
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Inhalt VII
- Vorwort XI
- Laudatio XIII
- Kurzvita XVII
- Schriftenverzeichnis von Christiane Reitz XIX
- Tabula gratulatoria XXVII
- Autorenverzeichnis XXXIII
-
Teil I: Die Tradition der epischen Dichtung von Homer bis Milton: Ambivalentes Heldentum und der epische Raum
- Einleitung 3
- Phoinix über die Verblendung des Helden 7
- Aeneas and Octavian: The Sharing of Epic Identity 37
- Resonantia saxa – Scylla und die Mauern von Megara (Ov. Met. 8.6–154) 71
- Iterum Philippi. La ‘doppiezza di Filippi’ da Virgilio a Lucano 91
- „Zweimal Emathien“: Das Proöm zu Lucans Bellum Ciuile und die Georgica Vergils 121
- Killed by Friendly Fire. Divine Scheming and Fatal Miscommunication in Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus Episode 145
- La mort de Tydée dans la Thébaïde de Stace 181
- Regulus and the Inconsistencies of Fame in Silius Italicus’ Punica 201
- The Vertical Axis in Classical and Post- Classical Epic 219
-
Teil II: Literarische Autorität: Dichter, Gattungskonventionen und Erneuerung
- Einleitung 241
- Numerosus Horatius. Metren und inhaltliche Bezüge im ersten Odenbuch des Horaz 245
- The Po(e)ts and Pens of Persius’ Third Satire (The Waters of Roman Satire, Part 2) 267
- Schlaflos mit Kallimachos. Eine Interpretation von Stat. Silv. 5.4 285
- Enthüllte Göttinnen. Der Blick des Dichters (Ovid und Kallimachos) 311
- Macht und Übermacht der Tradition. Dichterkataloge in der lateinischen Literatur von Ovid bis Sidonius 335
- Der Mythos von Orpheus und Eurydice bei Ovid und Boethius 359
- Apuleius in France: La Fontaine’s Psyché and its Apuleian Model 385
- Rote Schafe, Goldene Zeit. Ein märchenhaftes Motiv bei Homer, Vergil und Voltaire 401
- Eduard Mörikes Roman von Cerinthus und Sulpicia 419
-
Teil III: Wissensvermittlung in Text und Bild: Rhetorische Exemplarität und didaktische exempla
- Einleitung 449
- nempe exemplis discimus. Tradition und Beispiel bei Phaedrus (3.9) 455
- The Poetry of Animals in Love. A Reading of Oppian’s Halieutica and Cynegetica 473
- Beyond the Fence. Columella’s Garden 501
- Zur Vereinbarkeit von ratio und reuerentia in Columellas Umgang mit Vergil 515
- A Lesson from the East: A New Pattern of Virility in Ovid’s Fasti 547
- Mit Alexander dem Großen und Albinovanus Pedo am Ende der Welt 575
- The ‘Controversial’ Continence of Scipio in Literature and Art: Gellius’ Noctes Atticae and Nicolò dell’Abate 595
- Titi summa clementia. Unbeachtete Zeugen für ein sprichwörtliches Herrscherbild 617
- Disertus vel desertus (Aug. Conf. 2.3.5) 637
- The Endeavours and exempla of the German Refugee Classicists Eva Lehmann Fiesel and Ruth Fiesel 655
- Bibliography 689
