Choose a novel from the 16th-18th century. Compare and contrast with one or both of the Latin novels. (Petronius’ Satyricon and/or Apuleius’ The Golden Ass)

The Spanish picaresque novel, exemplified in Don Quixote by Cervantes, can be seen to have antecedents in the Roman novels, Petronius’ Satyricon and Apuleius’ The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses. This essay will examine some of the shared traits of these styles as well as some of the differences. Particular attention will be paid to direct literary allusions to scenes in Don Quixote, which are directly related to scenes in The Golden Ass. It will be shown that, while the influence of Petronius is palpable, Apuleius’ The Golden Ass was by far a more important model for Cervantes. While this essay will look in on the influence of the Satyricon, the focus will fall upon the influence of the The Golden Ass.
The picaresque novel is defined generally as a realistic novel following the adventures of a low-life rascal or rogue. However, the genre is also characterised by its humorous and satirical elements. In the English literary tradition, we might also think of works such as Swift’s satirical Gulliver’s Travels or Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. Although strict definitions of the picaresque vary, nevertheless, the blend of the serious and the humorous, the social-commentary entailed, and the focus on the experiences of characters outside the social elite (who were more often than not the focus of literary texts), reminds us of novels of the Roman period. Many commentators have linked the later Spanish form to the Roman novels of Imperial period – though their influence on the Spanish picaresque can be felt in varying degrees. Walsh, who obviously takes a wider view of the picaresque, writes in his definitive study of the Roman novel: “The Satyricon is the first known picaresque novel, and Encolpius as peripatetic rogue is the forebear of the heroes of the Spanish, French, and English picaresque traditions… Petronius’ influence is chiefly oblique; the Spanish realistic novelists must have known about the Satyricon and the kind of work it was, but they know The Golden Ass intimately.” The first Spanish translation of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses appeared in 1513. The tale of Lucius’ wanderings and transformation into an ass and back again appears to have influenced Cervantes considerably. It also influenced the earlier example of Spanish picaresque, Lazarillo de Tormes, written in 1545. But why this imitation? Graff argues that there is a moral element to Cervantes’ imitation of Apuleius: “As we have seen, Cervantes’ references to The Golden Ass are more than a matter of literary tradition; they have a specific moral purpose….Apuleius…was one of those enigmatic authors of late classical antiquity who so impressed the Renaissance Neoplatonists. From his own day, well into the Medieval period Apuleius was regarded as either a serious philosopher or a powerful magician, often both.” Clearly Apuleius held some fascination for writers and thinkers of the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain, which, from the 15th century on, underwent a period of significant religious turmoil.
However, the whole of the Satyricon (at least, what was then extant) first appeared in Spanish in 1623 – after publication of the two parts of Don Quixote and indeed after the death of Cervantes. Although, parts were translated earlier and the work was known, it does not seem to have had so great an influence as The Golden Ass. Perhaps this is simply because of the fragmentary state o the text, and the fact that Apuleius was considered an important philosophical figure.
The Satyricon draws upon the traditions of Menippean Satire and Milesian tales. This can be seen in the combination of verse and prose forms as well as the blend of humour and satire. The Metamorphoses, however, recalls the Milesian Tales more strongly, giving us a variety of stories yoked together within a major overall narrative structure. This form of story-telling reflects the wandering nature of the characters. Bakhtin has discussed the importance of ‘the road’ in narratives such as the Satyricon, Metamorphoses and Don Quixote. Cervantes uses this same style of narrative, weaving together tales of the past and present as well as tales from characters other than the main protagonists, all of which were played out and recited while on the road. It has been suggested that the The Golden Ass is key to understanding the structure of Don Quixote. The ancient novel is the source of many imitations and motifs in part one of Cervantes’ work – many of which will be discussed below – but it is also an important text for the overall structure of the narrative in part two. In fact, De Armas has described the “trajectory” of the Apuleian novel as key to understanding part two of Don Quixote. De Armas sees the same themes of transformation in both of these texts. He writes: “Lucius, who is transformed into an ass due to his excessive curiosity…goes through many comic adventures until his vision of the Egyptian deity Isis leads him back to human form, at which time he chooses to become a priest of the goddess. Don Quixote, who is transformed into a knight because of his excessive reading and curiosity concerning chivalry, regains his sanity at the end of part II, paralleling Lucius’ transformation.” In fact, much of the imagery used by Cervantes as Don Quixote undergoes his own transformation reflects the lunar imagery of the goddess Isis. For instance, Sanson Carrasco is called the Knight of the Mirrors or the Knight of the Moon. Therefore, the wandering Roman narratives, and clearly, the Apuleian motif of transformation, a kind of redemption even, were important models for Cervantes.
But while we can see some broad thematic and stylistic parallels between both Roman works and that of Cervantes, Apuleius’ work was by far the more influential in terms of detail. There are numerous scenes in Don Quixote that echo particular scenes from The Golden Ass. One of the most obvious parallels, and one which has met with little scholarly opposition, is the slaying of the wineskin giant. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are staying at an inn, when Sancho Panza bursts into the main room to tell the innkeeper that Don Quixote is slaying the giant, the enemy of Princess Micomicona:
“In his right hand was his naked sword, with which he was lamming out in all directions, shouting all the time as if he were really fighting with a giant. The cream of the joke was that his eyes were not open, because he was asleep and dreaming that he was battling with the giant. For his imagination was so bent on the adventure which he was going to achieve, that it made him dream he had got to the kingdom of Micomicon and was already at grips with his enemy.” (D.Q. 1.35, p.316ff).
The humour of the scene and the misplaced bravery are strongly reminiscent of the scene in The Golden Ass where Lucius, returning drunken from a dinner party, slays what he thinks are violent intruders at the door of his host. After a dreadful morning believing that he has accidentally slain a few of the town’s eminent young men and will be severely punished for the deed, it is revealed that the intruders were nothing more than inflated wine-skins, props in a mass practical joke planned by the town as a gift to the god of laughter (Apul.Met.2.32ff, p.45ff). Lucius is described as follows when he comes upon the apparent intruders:
“So it seemed only reasonable to us, and especially to me, that these were robbers, and of the most violent and sadistic sort. So I instantly grab my sword, the one I keep concealed under my garments and brought along with me for just such an occasion, and free it from he folds of my robe. I don’t hesitate. I fairly fly into the middle of these robbers, and as I confront and grapple with them one by one, I sink my sword into them as deep as it can go. The end result: finally they lay before me at my feet, riddled with wide and close-set wounds, and through these wounds they gave up the ghost.” (Apul.Met.2.32, p.46)
Comparison of these scenes reveals that despite the similarities in situation, there are some important differences between the two scenes. Although Lucius returns to his host’s home drunken and tired, he is still very much awake when faced with apparent danger. Don Quixote’s wandering and his adventures are more dreamlike. His adventures are idealised imaginings and indeed this adventure in particular is experienced entirely in his sleep. However, Lucius is the victim of his insatiable curiosity and it is this trait, as well as his more bestial desires, that he has to learn to overcome as the novel progresses. Graff writes: “Contrary to its erotic exposition, The Golden Ass’s conclusion overcomes the problem of concupiscence by paying cultic homage to Isis. In other words, the novel’s moral trajectory from lust to devotion, which is paralleled by the protagonist’s transformations into an ass and back into a man again, is in and of itself the philosophy of Apuleius.” However, there are others too, who think that Don Quixote shares something of this trait of curiosity. Carter writes of the “pervasive levels of Apuleian influence. Don Quixote shares with Lucius a tendency to credulity and an eagerness for novelty. Like Lucius, he is a well-born and perniciously curious man who has been metamorphosed, not by magic, but by the wicked influence of fictions.” Indeed the episode of the wineskins comes in the midst of – in fact explicitly interrupts – a ‘Tale of Foolish Curiosity’, read aloud by a priest from a manuscript found in the Innkeeper’s trunk of books. So, although there seems to be some similarity between the two characters, these two episodes reveal some striking differences. As Alter writes: “The picaro’s imagination is pragmatic, the Don’s idealistic…The picaro improvises his manner of acting as he goes; he preserves strong sense of spontaneity in the way he lives. Don Quixote on the other hand tries to follow a pattern he has learned from the printed page.” This difference is certainly felt between these two passages.
Another scene that is thought to allude to The Golden Ass is Don Quixote’s injunction that his horse Rocinante be remembered: “And you, sage enchanter, whoever you may be, to whose lot it falls to be the chronicler of this strange history, I beg you not to forget my good Rocinante, my constant companion on all my rides and journeys!” (D.Q.1.2, P.36). Apuleius plays with the same knowing appeals to the immortalizing effects of literature, when the character Charite promises the ass Lucius life-long comfort and everlasting fame for speeding her away from her captors:
“And you – the fortress of my liberation and my salvation – if you can deliver me home safe and sound to my mother and father, if you can give me back to my beautiful fiancé, how great will be the thanks I’ll render…I shall perpetuate the memory of my present calamity and of divine providence by dedicating in the vestibule of my house a tablet carved with the Story of our Flight. There the eyes will see it, and the ears will hear it, told for all time in learned narratives” (Apul.Met.6.28ff, p.131ff)
We might see in both of these passages a preference for the underdog, a picaresque concern for the low-life, which runs through the entirety of the Roman novels and through Don Quixote. An important parallel between these passages is not just the situation- the steed that should be immortalised through literature- but the very idea of the immortalising power of literature (long a popular idea among writers of Graeco-Roman antiquity) and the playful meta-level appeal to the author. However, we might say that overall a difference arises in that Apuleius frequently tempts the reader into believing that he himself is the narrator. So that, although, both authors play with the conceit of story-telling, Apuleius takes the game further, almost daring his reader to believe his story to be true.
Another parallel is perhaps to be found in the descriptions of both Isis and the Virgin Mary. Both goddesses wear startling and noteworthy black cloaks. In Apuleius, Lucius’ vision of the goddess Isis comes when he is at his lowest ebb. He has learned to control his animal passions and has clearly undergone a mental transformation. When he sees the goddess, he is awestruck by her black mantle:
“But what above all made me stare and stare again was her mantle. This was jet black and shone with a dark resplendence; it passed right around her, under her right arm and up to her left shoulder, where it was bunched and hung down in a series of many folds to the tasselled fringes of its gracefully waving hem. Along its embroidered border and all over its surface shone a scattered pattern of stars, and in the middle of them the full moon radiated flames of fire.” (Apul.Met.11.3-4, p.197, Kenney edition)
In comparison to Lucius’ humbled demeanour, Don Quixote is again blindly galloping in pursuit of a dream – he rashly believes that a noble lady is being abducted when he sees the image of the Virgin Mary being carried by some priests. The description of the cloak around the Virgin Mary is very brief compared to the lavish description in the Metamorphoses:
“He was confirmed in his opinion on seeing an image clothed in black, that they carried with them, and which he doubted not was some illustrious lady, forcibly borne away by ruffians and miscreants” (D.Q.1.52).
It is a simple reference to a black cloak worn in mourning. However, Graff has argued that this cleverly alludes to the goddess Isis. He writes: “The black veil worn by the statue of the Virgin in Don Quijote 1.52 connects her directly to one of the most conspicuous and enigmatic details given by Lucius when he describes the goddess Isis at the end of the Golden Ass.” This is quite a leap to make. It is possible that the context is in favour of this argument – the sight of the goddess in black comes at the end of both men’s adventures (for a time at least, in the case of Don Quixote). For Lucius, the sight of the goddess brings about his transformation and redemption. For Don Quixote, the sight of the goddess brings rest and a respite from his illusory adventures.
Finally, we will look at another possible allusion to The Golden Ass. Selig has proposed that the episode of the herds of sheep may contain an allusion to The Golden Ass. Don Quixote is certain, as he watches the clouds of dust rise in the distance, that he is viewing the approach of enemy armies. In Apuleius’ tale, Fotis tells her lover Lucius the truth about the embarrassing incident of the slaughter of the wine-skins. She describes him arriving home to do battle with his imagined foes:
“And then – now imagine this – you come along: dripping with your drunkenness, unwitted by the inky darkness of the thoughtless night, your sword edge boldly unsheathed, weapon in hand like the mad hero Ajax – almost; He, taking the offensive against live animals, butchered an entire herd of them.” (Apul.Met.3.18, p.59)
This can be compared to the scene in Don Quixote mentioned above. When Sancho Panza realises that his master is attacking sheep, he cries for instance: “‘The only thing I can hear,’ replied Sancho, ‘is a great bleating of rams and ewes.’…..’Turn back, Don Quixote, for I swear to God, sir, they are rams and ewes you are going to attack.” (D.Q 1.18) The reference to Ajax in the Apuleian tale refers to the story (well known from the play Ajax by Sophocles) of Ajax’s mistaken slaying of a herd of sheep. The goddess Athena had tricked him in believing that the sheep were the Greek leaders of the Trojan War, whom he was angry at. This reference is an effective and very comic parallel to the delusions of both Lucius and Don Quixote. All at once, it elevates the action to epic proportions and yet satirically undercuts this by its calculated echo of heroic buffoonery.
The episodes of the slaughter of the wineskins and the herds of sheep are thus a dense nexus of literary allusion. Cervantes plays with the legitimising and elevating effects of allusions to classical works by deferring to them for ideas of misplaced bravery. Of these allusions De Armas writes: “The novel, then, is pointing to classical auctoritas and diverting it through the imaginative whimsies of a hero who re-configures the classics by transforming evidentia into an indictment on the reliability of the senses and into a ludic game in which autopsy and teichoskopia are emptied of their historical accuracy and epic grandeur.” In Cervantes’ hands, the classical literary tradition becomes yet another example of the foolishness of literature – rather than a legitimising force.
In conclusion, Cervantes was very much influenced by the wandering tale of Lucius, and, through this story of asinine transformation, he was probably also influenced by that other story of wandering roguishness, the Satyricon. Although the Satyricon was known in Spain during the sixteenth century, Apuleius’ novel was far better known and much more extant. We have seen many parallels between The Golden Ass or the Metamorphoses and Don Quixote, both on the wider levels of structure, style, and narrative voice, and on the more detailed level of explicit allusion and imitation, and similar character traits. However, the overall tones of the works are quite different. Although Lucius and Don Quixote are both hampered by their love of adventure and their passionate curiosity, Don Quixote remains a far dreamier character given to idealised flights of fancy, while Lucius is a more down-to-earth figure. Just as Apuleius drew upon the Satyricon and earlier genres such as Menippean satire and the Milesian tales to fashion his wandering comic-satire, Cervantes drew upon Apuleius’ work.