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English 240: Ancient Literature Longus, Daphnis and Chloe Al Drake | Cyber Cafe M/W 10-11 | ajdrake@ajdrake.com Prologue and General Questions 1. In the Prologue, what purpose does the author give for telling the story? From what source has he drawn it, and what significance might such a reference to another genre imply? 2. Critics sometimes identify a given text as "metanarrative." What does that term mean, and how--after you have read some of Longus' pastoral tale--might it apply to Daphnis and Chloe? What purpose might the metanarrative aspect of the story serve? 3. It's clear that Longus has reflected much on the youthful experience of love and on humanity's relationship to nature. As you read, consider how the narrative explores these things, and then set down the insights he offers us. 4. The realms of myth and dream play significant roles in Daphnis and Chloe. How do you interpret those roles? What, for example, does Longus' allusion to various stories about the gods from Homer and others have to do with the text's exploration of courtship and sexuality? Book 1 5. How are Daphnis and Chloe found? What sort of people are Lamon and Myrtale, and Dryas and Nape? Why do they name the children as they do? What seems to be the narrator's attitude towards the people, setting, and events he describes in these first few pages? 6. How do Daphnis and Chloe, respectively, first experience love, and how do they interpret their erotic stirrings? 7. If there were a prize for unsuccessful suitorship advanced by inappropriate means, Dorcon the cowherd would win easily. What does his failure, along with the partly comic misunderstandings and misadventures of Daphnis and Chloe themselves, suggest about the importance of "courtship" in dealing with natural sexual instinct? 8. By the end of the first book, the main characters have beaten back a foray by Tyrian pirates, and the emphasis shifts back to Daphnis' longing for Chloe. What is the relationship in Book 1 between external plot developments and the internal development of the two young lovers? Book 2 9. The second book opens at harvest time, with due honors for Dionysus. What associations cluster around that god? How does the narrative exploit them for comic effect and perhaps for a more serious look at Daphnis and Chloe's experience of love? 10. Philetas the cowherd enters the scene--what story does the old man tell, and what guidance does he offer Daphnis and Chloe? What new dimension does he add to the conception of "Love"? 11. Just as Daphnis and Chloe are about to be initiated into full sexuality, some "rich young men from Methymna" unwittingly come between them. What happens, and how do you understand Longus' choice to pose this particular obstacle just when he does, and then to follow it up with a miraculous rescue by Pan, god of the wood and pastoral pipe? 12. What alliances between art and nature are explored when Lamon tells the story of the pan-pipe's origin, Philetas demonstrates all the various kinds of pastoral melody, Dryas dances the movements of the harvest, and Daphnis wins Philetas' pipe as a gift for his own impressive command of the instrument? 13. Daphnis and Chloe end the second book by swearing oaths of fidelity. Why does Chloe insist upon a second oath from Daphnis--this time an oath by the goats he tends? There is also just a mild allusion to the potential for violence in such "primal" matters as erotic passion--how has the text handled this potential so far in the first two books? Book 3 14. When springtime rolls round again, Daphnis and Chloe try to follow nature, taking as their example the rams and ewes. Why doesn't this plan work? What is the narrative suggesting about the difference between humans and animals with regard to sexuality? 15. How does Lycaenion, the young wife of Chromis, assist Daphnis in his quest? What attitude does the narrator take towards this--well, instruction--by a married adult woman of an adolescent male? 16. What effect does Lycaenion's mention of Chloe's virginity have on Daphnis? What does the story of Echo, as recounted by Daphnis to Chloe, have to do with this issue? 17. What keeps Dryas and Nape as well as Lamon and Myrtale from approving of the marriage match that Daphnis is so eager to make with Chloe? How do the Nymphs help Daphnis, and what obstacle remains in spite of this help? 18. The third book ends with another of the tale's allusions to myth--Daphnis' reaching for a fine apple and awarding it to Chloe. What associations does the allusion to Aphrodite's first-place finish in a beauty contest with Paris as judge bring with it concerning the love-match between Daphnis and Chloe? (Look up the story in a myth guide if you're not familiar with it.) Book 4 19. The master Dionysophanes and his wife Cleariste plan a visit to the farm that Lamon and Myrtale manage for them, but first to arrive are the couple's son Astylus and his companion Gnathon. What trouble from Lampis the cowherd precedes their arrival, and what implications beyond the literal destruction of the garden might his actions have? 20. What danger does Gnathon's misconduct pose for Daphnis? How does Gnathon describe his passion for Daphnis after his initial attempt on the boy fail--what is the basic and dangerous flaw in Gnathon's assumptions about love? 21. Lamon, alarmed at the prospect of losing Daphnis to Gnathon's plot, reveals the circumstances of the boy's discovery and upbringing. How does Dionysophanes explain his behavior once it becomes clear that Daphnis is his long-abandoned son? What attitude does this narrative take towards the class barrier between the master and his servants? 22. What leads Dionysophanes to hold a feast in Mytilene, and what does Megacles, Chloe's father, have to say for himself? On the whole, what significance emerges from the now-completed romance pattern in which two children are abandoned, discovered as foundlings, raised in a pastoral setting, and then reunited with their successful parents? 23. How do the marriage rites and then the married life of Daphnis and Chloe strike a balance between nature, the demands of civil society, and art? Edition: Longus. Daphnis and Chloe. Trans. Paul Turner. New York: Penguin, 1989.
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