CHAPTER 12 The Genre of the Novel

A Theoretical Approach

Marília P. Futre Pinheiro

The term “novel” was only recently accepted as an official designation at the first International Conference on the Ancient Novel (ICAN I), sponsored by B.P. Reardon in 1976 to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Rohde’s Der Griechische Roman (three subsequent ICAN conferences [Dartmouth 1989; Groningen 2000; and Lisbon 2008] adopted the same terminology). However, what is there about the texts commonly labeled “ancient novel” that allowed them to be categorized together as a literary genre? What universal law applies to a set of literary works that causes an individual act of creation, supposedly unique in and of itself, to develop recurrent and iterative features which, when blended together, form a pattern that makes up a particular genre and is simultaneously located at the beginning (because a successful work is immediately used as a model and thus contributes to a particular literary type) and end (because no theoretical scheme precedes non-existing literary works) of that creative process (see Grimal 1992, 13).

A second and closely associated question concerns the supposed legitimacy of pairing and labeling literary works that appear at the dawn of two modernities: the Greek–Roman modernity, which is the result of a long and complex cultural phenomenon, and the European modernity, which claims to be the historical and literary heir to the former and within which the novel is counted among the richest and most productive manifestations. The relatively recent interest that scholars have given this controversial genre, which emerged and flourished in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and the lack of awareness of it on the part of most theorists and literary critics no longer justify its absence in works that claim as their main purpose a systematic study of literary language in all its components and modes (for a few honorable exceptions, see Bakhtin 1978; Scholes, Phelan, and Kellog 2006; and Frye 1976).

The issues raised here are linked to the uexata quaestio of the theory of genres and generic modes (for a mise au point of the genesis, nature, and historical development of genre theories, see e.g. Strelka 1978; Hernadi 1972; Todorov 1978; Genette 1979; Fowler 1982; Scholes 1986; Garrido Gallardo 1988; Schaeffer 1989; García Berrio and Huerta Calvo 1995; Spang 1993; and Bessière and Philippe 1999). The nature of what we call “genre” has changed throughout the ages, depending on scholars’ aesthetic and philosophical stances. Hence, the various viewpoints adopted from the common practice that, until recently, defined genre in stratified and hierarchical terms, taking it for granted that genres are definable and mutually exclusive, to Croce’s view that peremptorily denies the existence or validity of genres. The modern genre theory is undoubtedly descriptive, endowing genre with a non-normative, instrumental, and operative nature. In this hermeneutic context, a discussion of literary genres usually implies a compromise between the theory of absolute categories and post-modern stances that defend the abolition of genres. Fowler (1982, 25) acknowledges the existence of genres as an undeniable truth, but admits that “the changing and interpenetrating nature of the genres is such as to make their definition impossible.” It is commonly acknowledged that fictional narrative in antiquity was not categorized according to any specific taxonomy¹ due to aesthetic, literary, and social motives (see, e.g. Perry 1967; Reardon 1969 and 1976; Cataudella 1973; García Gual 1995; Heiserman 1977; Hägg 1983; Anderson 1984; Bowie 1985; Roueché 1988; Kuch 1989; Holzberg 1995; Morgan 1994 and 1995; MacAlister 1991; Selden 1994, 39–40; Swain 1999; and Ruiz Montero 2003, 80–85). Bowersock (1994) regards the birth of Greek prose fiction under the emperor Nero as an important historical event, closely linked to the reaffirmation of cultural differences within a homogeneous and peaceful administration, as well as to the emergence of an ecumenical Hellenism capable of assimilating the remains of what was previously regarded as barbarian. Beltrán Almería (1998, 296) stresses that, unlike traditional patriarchal societies, which were based on lineage, the new cultural needs can be accounted for in terms of construction of a new identity, based on alterity. This new era, marked off by new transforming forces (monetarism, commerce, internationalization, and imperialism), is the result of complex social changes and establishes a new set of values that culminates in a culture of personal merit. Yet, it is rather curious that, in a modern hermeneutic context, the philosophical principles of the early eighteenth-century novel are discussed in terms of the birth of the “individual conscience” that appears when the “idea of the individual” becomes central and gains importance. Martha Nussbaum (1995) considers that the specific nature of the modern novel and its appearance is intimately connected with the advent of democracy. In her view, that fact explains the mainly social character of the genre and its concern with daily life.

Ever since Huet’s pioneering synthesis on the origins of the novel, first published in 1670 (Gégou 1971), not to mention Rohde’s (1914) outstanding work, authors have deliberately used terms such as “romance” (Portuguese), “novela” (Castilian/Spanish), “novel”/“romance” (English), “roman” (German), “romanzo” (Italian) to describe this kind of prose fiction. Nevertheless, the use of these terms applied to ancient prose fiction apparently involves both a contradiction and a misconception, as noted by Tatum (1994a, 3): the contradiction lies in the fact that a modern term is being used retroactively to refer to works from antiquity, and the misconception lies in the fact that we are aware of the ambiguity of this term, of its fluidity and indefinition. In Portugal, for example, in the sixteenth century, the terms “romance,” “novela,” and “conto,” far from having specific referential status, are subjected to a completely subjective and variable linguistic praxis, according to the contexts and periods under study. The term “romance” also has a derogatory connotation, being used in the Middle Ages to describe verse narratives, and later also prose narratives, written in vernacular languages, as opposed to those works written in Latin. This indefinition is apparent not only in the generic formulation of the concept, but also in its many different sub-species or categories: the “picaresque novel,” the “love and adventure novel,” the “novel of chivalry,” the Bildungsroman, the “impressionist, realist, naturalist novels,” the “sentimental novel,” the “novel of character,” and the nouveau roman (for a typological analysis of the novel, see García Berrio and Huerta Calvo 1995, 182–198).

Do these three arguments—the absence of a specific name for the new genre, the anachronistic term, and the conceptual amplitude and theoretical indefinition of the term “novel” that comprises multiple sub-genres—account for the fact that some contemporary critics seem unaware of the importance of these texts? Or are there deeper reasons because there is no valid justification for such anachronism, given the essential contradiction between the object (ancient prose fiction) and its term (novel)? As is common knowledge, Aristotle and Plato do not mention this specific kind of narrative, which was not part of the traditional canon and hence regarded as an outsider. Nevertheless, this status of outsider has been a constant throughout its long-standing and controversial existence, as postulated by Frye (1976, 23). However, it appears that this terminological indefinition is no reason to exclude these texts from the history of the novel, especially if we bear in mind that form proliferates so rapidly in postmodern literature that some authors are led to defend the suppression of modal or generic boundaries, as mentioned earlier. However, as Fowler (1982, 32) highlighted, “it would be wrong to suppose that generic transformation is peculiarly modern. Or rather, that modernism itself is new. In the dialectical progressions of literary history, there have been many times when the urge to go beyond existing genres has recurred.” Now more than ever, generic categories are merely operational: the writer explores and transgresses the boundaries of genre, simultaneously innovating (combining or discarding genres), or activating anew, existing categories. Fowler calls the phenomenon of generic mixture “modulation,” and he observes that “[m]odulation is so frequent that we might expect it progressively to loosen the genres altogether, mingling them into a single literary amalgam.”²

It is self-evident that if we use the term “novel” as a starting point to define this particular genre, we have to accept that the genre started around the middle of the twelfth century with the so-called courtly novels. Some historians of literature are more extreme and determine that the emergence of the new genre took place in the seventeenth century with Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Watt (2001) goes even further when he establishes that this genre originated in the eighteenth century.

By methodological reasons, we will assume that genre is an empirical model that is defined institutionally by the relationship between the set of works included in a certain class or type by historical tradition.³ In this way, the different genres are mere abbreviations that list a set of works that share common features, their referent being the collection of objects selected and described by means of analysis. In practice, it is possible for a certain work to exist without there being a generic designation for it.

Consequently, as Holzberg (2003, 11) stresses, the real problem that presents itself in any attempt to develop a theory on the generic nature of ancient narrative prose is not so much one of terminology—the inexistence of a comprehensive term in antiquity as well as the similarities between Greek and Latin texts and the modern ones justify and legitimize the use of an anachronism. What is difficult is deciding which ancient texts can be labeled “novel,” and determining if there is a corpus with a series of common features that can be classified as belonging to one and the same “genre.” The very concept of “genre” will only become legitimate in this context if a number of set criteria are established that enable us to assign a collection of ancient prose (fiction texts) narratives to a homogeneous group. It is therefore necessary to define the canon⁴ of the novel, which will forcefully lead to a classification of the nature of the texts that go by the generic designation of “ancient novels.” Our aim is not so much to prove whether the novel in its modern sense existed in antiquity, especially if, as Kundera claims, there are only “stories” of the novel, but rather to discover to what extent the criteria put forth for defining that genre may contribute to a better understanding of our own generic awareness. These criteria should not only comply with modern principles but also and above all, contemplate former aesthetic and literary patterns.

The spectrum of what is commonly labeled “Greek novel,” which represents a tiny section of a vast literary production lost in time, is vast, blurred, and not at all homogeneous. The five idealized narratives, the so-called Liebesromane, are Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe (mid-first century BC/AD?), Xenophon of Ephesus’ The Ephesian Tale of Anthia and Habrocomes (mid-second century AD?), Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon (late second century AD), Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (late second /early third century AD), and Heliodorus’ Aethiopica—Theagenes and Charicleia (early/mid-third century AD or late fourth century AD). Apart from these, it is generally accepted that the genre of ancient novel also includes those fragments or summaries that display features similar to ones found in the five. This is the case for Iamblichus’ Babyloniaca and Antonius Diogenes’ The Wonders beyond Thule, both being known through Photius’ summaries in the latter half of the ninth century (cod. 94 and cod. 166, respectively). It is curious that Photius, at the beginning of his synopsis of the Babyloniaca, only lists, besides Iamblichus, Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus as making up those authors “who have adopted the same subject and have chosen love intrigues as the material for their stories” (οἱ γὰρ τρει̑ς οτοι σχεδόν τι τὸν αὐτὸν σκοπὸν προθέμενοι ἐρωτικω̑ν δραμάτων ὑποθέσεις ὑπεκρίθησαν…, Bibl. cod. 94), leaving out Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, and Longus. There is no way of proving that Photius knew about the work of these authors, but we are inclined to believe that he had strong enough motives not to include them in the group he was defining. This leaves us to wonder why he omitted them: even if this decision is acceptable as far as Longus’ work is concerned, the same cannot be said about Chariton and Xenophon of Ephesus, whose texts reflect the same paraphernalia of motifs. In addition to Iamblichus and Antonius Diogenes, there is the epitome of a comic novel, the erotic novella Lucius or the Ass (also known variously as Lucius siue Asinus, Asinus, or Onos) by the Pseudo-Lucian (translations of the Greek corpus are available in Reardon 2008); reference should also be made to another work that apparently was the model for the Onos: the Metamorphoses of a certain Lucius of Patras (Photius, Bibl. cod. 129). Most scholars acknowledge Perry’s (1967) thesis that Lucian himself was the author of the now lost and longer text of the Metamorphoses recorded by Photius, which seems to have been the model for both the epitome ascribed to Lucian and for Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. Yet, there is no overwhelming consensus on this matter due to the confusing, contradictory testimonia and to the fact that the original Greek text was lost. Nevertheless, the scholarly opinion nowadays is that both works (the Onos and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses) are independently derived from the Greek Metamorphoses by Lucius from Patras. However, as Sandy (1994a, 1518) stresses, “The ‘stemma’ of the Eselsroman is not yet a closed book.”⁵

Recently, the inventory of ancient narrative prose fiction has increased by the inclusion of fragments whose main features have challenged the view that divided ancient narrative production into two sub-categories: the serious and idealized Greek novel and the burlesque and realistic Latin novel.⁶ Henrichs’ publication of the fragments of Lollianus’ Phoenicica (1969 and 1972; edition and English translation in Stephens and Winkler 1994), and Parsons’ publication of a fragment of a narrative known as Iolaus, which is most likely part of a posited Greek Schelmenroman (edition and English translation in Parsons 1974 and Stephens and Winkler 1995; for the possibility that the Iolaus was “a Greek Satyricon,” see Parsons 1971; Sandy 1994b, 139–140; Merkelbach 1973) has undermined that widely accepted dichotomy, showing that rudeness and obscenity as well as humorous and comical treatment were not limited to the Latin novel. There was a Greek narrative tradition of a parodic and licentious nature that might even have influenced Petronius. The thesis defended by some scholars (first Heinze 1899; later Reitzenstein 1974; Paratore 1942; Courtney 1962; Scobie 1969; and Walsh 1970, 8, 78–79) that the Satyrica is a parody of the Greek love-novels has been called into question due to some recent papyrological testimonia (e.g. Mendell 1917; Todd 1940, 75–76; Wehrli 1965; Sandy 1969 and 1994a; Gagliardi 1993, 26–29; and Schmeling 2003, 481–482). Based on Perry (1967, 320–321), Sandy (1994a, 1517) remarks that, more often than not, the similarities between Petronius and Apuleius, on the one hand, and between the Satyrica and the Metamorphoses and the Greek love-romances, on the other hand, are drawn from “the common stock of classical Greek and Latin literature rather than distinctive features of the prose fiction of classical antiquity” (Keulen 2006, 159, presents a similar view; in general, see Barchiesi 2006; and Laird 2007).

The evidence concerning Greek prose fiction spans a period of at least five centuries, from the Ninus Romance or Ninopedia, most likely dated from the first century BC (for the fragments of lost novels, see Kussl 1991; Sandy 1994b; Stephens and Winkler 1995; Morgan 1998; López Martínez 1998; and Stephens 2003), to Heliodorus, who, according to the latest research, goes back to the fourth century AD (on the chronology of Greek prose fiction texts, see Weinreich 1962; Perry 1967; Reardon 1971; Lesky 1999; Sandy 1994a, 1514 n. 4; Bowie 1999, 39–41; and Ruiz Montero 2003, 30–31). Other texts, which may somewhat resemble the above-mentioned, such as The Romance of Alexander by the Pseudo-Callisthenes, the Vita Apollonii by Philostratus, and Cyropaedia by Xenophon of Athens (for the last, see Stadter 1991; Tatum 1994b; and Holzberg 2003, 20–21) are as a rule relegated to the “fringe” of the genre.

As we turn now to the more restricted Latin tradition, this “canon” of love and adventure stories widens its scope with the inclusion of Petronius’ Satyrica (before 66 AD), Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (after 158–159 AD), and the later anonymous text Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri.

Petronius’ affiliation with modernity and post-modernity, stressed by Fusillo (2008, 330–337), and his reading of the Satyrica as a model for the twentieth-century experimental novel and for open and encyclopedic forms (Fusillo 2011), are particularly interesting insights. According to Fusillo, a certain number of Petronius’s innovative features look toward the modern novel and contemporary experimentation, such as: the absence of teleology (i.e. the labyrinthine and anarchic course of the narration as well as its paratactic and hectically episodic organization), its open form, theatricality, and realism. Other features of the Satyrica, such as its expressive polyphony which is linked with a polyhedric and promiscuous view of sexuality, also recall crucial contemporary issues, such as the post-modern aesthetics of the “camp,” an outstanding category in Anglo-Saxon culture first defined by Susan Sontag in 1967, which “indicates a mixture of irony, theatricality, aestheticism, and juxtaposition of incongruous elements; a playful re-use of consumer culture; a refined contamination of kitsch with cultivated, high-brow elements” (Fusillo 2011, 142).

Helm (1956), Wehrli (1965), and Perry (1967) have made invaluable contributions to the setting up of a typology of ancient fiction prose. Helm provides a detailed inventory of this diversified literary production and lists and organizes its various types. Wehrli based his genre theory on the similarities between Petronius and Apuleius and between the Satyrica and the Greek love novels. He undertakes a thorough survey of the motifs common to the comical and idealized traditions of prose fiction, and eventually rejected the thesis that the Satyrica was a parody of the idealized Greek novel based on the fact that, for example, the theme of pederasty, usually seen as the main component of that parody, was already present in the idealized Greek novel. Perry (1967, 18–27) considers that the nature of the literary form (εἶδοσ) has been misinterpreted, once its genesis and development are not defined and controlled by unchanging laws of nature, such as things in the physical and biological world. He claims that what causes the appearance of a new type of writing is the “ever-changing world of thought and feeling which underlies literature, causes and controls its movement, or evolution, and acts upon it constantly from without” (Perry 1967, 25). Therefore, Perry rejects the prescriptive nature of the Platonic and Aristotelian concept of literary form or genre (εἶδοσ), fixed by nature as something eternal and immutable, a universal pattern, shaped and controlled by natural law, in relation to which any particular work of art must be gauged and thereby approved or rejected. This false doctrine, as he calls it, predetermines the content of a given work, and distorts the original, complex, and variable character of the creative impulse, which is purely psychological and subjective by nature. Perry postulates the existence of an individual force, unique and unpredictable in itself, which shapes and determines the individual act of creation, ensuring that no two works of literature are exactly alike, or represent exactly the same idea or aesthetic value. Accordingly, the word “form” can only be adequately used if it refers to a single composition. When the term is used abstractly with reference to a group or class of writings, its precise meaning is always arbitrary and vague.

This line of reasoning is shared by those authors who claim that literature has its own dynamics and that the act of producing a literary text is not dependent upon a merely mechanical and predetermined process. As Morgan (1994, 3; cf. 1995) claims, “Specific fictional forms are generated in response to changing tastes and needs, which are themselves reflections of changing social, economic and historical circumstances.” However, ancient fiction is a response, not only to specific social and political factors, which shape a particular type of narrative prose in antiquity (the love and adventure tales), but other factors should also be taken into account, such as the audience’s response to this kind of literature, the interaction, and, at times, the confrontation with other texts. These factors may contribute to help explain the creative impulse or need for fiction, or the existence of other types of narrative prose fiction in classical antiquity (Morgan 1994, 1–5; Reardon 1991, 3–11; Müller 1981). This perspective widens and enriches the system of canonical genres, as it enables the inclusion of other texts related to the existing ones (Morgan 1994, 6–9; Holzberg 1995 and 2003; Bowie 1999; García Gual 1995).

Kayser (1956, 360–361) considers that there are three types of novels: the adventure novel, the character novel, and the space novel, with the Greek adventure novel, which was highly influential worldwide, being first to appear. Nevertheless, we owe the most brilliant reflection on genre and generic categories to Bakhtin. Bakhtin added the dimensions of space and time to the idea of genre, which, for him, represents the creative memory within the processes of literary creation. His chronotope category, according to Branham (2002, 166), is “a fundamental working assumption that shapes the genre’s way of seeing reality,” and “an attempt to delineate time as an organizing principle of a genre, the ground or field against which the human image is projected.” Bakhtin (1978, 237) uses the chronotope, i.e. “the inseparable correlation of spatial–temporal relationships,” to characterize the adventure-time of the Greek “adventure and ordeal novel” (Prüfungsroman), which he considers to be the first form of the ancient novel. Bakhtin claimed that the elaborate technique in handling time is so perfect that the development of the later adventure novel did not add anything substantial to it. In light of Bakhtin’s conception of the chronotope, and despite the fact that, as he argues, none of the basic components of the plot are actually new, the characteristic elements of the former genres acquired a new character, meaning, and specific functions in this new form of Greek narrative prose. The Latin novel, according to Bakhtin, belongs to the category of the “adventure and custom novel,” which is characterized by a completely new chronotope, which, contrary to that of the Greek novel, leaves “a deep and ineradicable mark” on the hero and on his entire life. This new type of adventure-time, instead of resulting in a “simple confirmation” of the hero’s identity as in Greek novel, leads rather to constructing “a new image: the image of an hero purified and regenerated” (1978, 267). In this chronotope, two spatial components are intertwined: the real itinerary and the metaphor of the “path of life.”

Despite the differences between the earliest Greek fictional narratives (Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe and Xenophon of Ephesus’ Ephesiaca) and the more sophisticated ones (Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, and Heliodorus’ Aethiopica), it is undoubtedly possible at a formal level to recognize a set of invariables or a system of permanent structural features: an intricate plot unfolding through unimaginable adventures (travels, tempests, shipwrecks, abductions), suicide attempts, apparent deaths, and hostile divinities (among which the omnipotent τύχη stands out), which all eventually contribute to a happy ending and the reunion of the two lovers. Thus, the narratological analysis⁷ is naturally adequate and even indispensable, as has been amply shown (see Hefti 1950; Hägg 1971; Futre Pinheiro 1987 and 1997; Ruiz Montero 1988; Fusillo 1991; and Chew 1993–1994). And also, despite the labyrinthic and questionable connections between the Greek “ideal novels” and their Latin comic–realistic doubles, the notorious differences, and the fact that the limited occurrence of supposed parallels does not constitute a compelling reason for supposing a direct link between the Greek and Latin texts, there are also undoubtedly convincing arguments for grouping them together.

It was thus proven that there exists a class of works displaying a series of recurrent and iterative thematic and formal features, which set this new form of fiction apart from all other forms of narrative in antiquity. Nevertheless, the genre cannot be fully accounted for in purely formal literary terms. Bakhtin (1978, 99ff.) defines the novel as pluri-stylistic, pluri-linguistic, and pluri-vocal. He claims that the novel is a literary system whose basic and distinguishing feature lies in its dialogic nature, emphasizing the deep interaction (both peaceful and hostile) with other rhetoric and literary genres, as well as its active and necessary participation in the social and ideological dialogue.

Goldhill (2008, 186) emphasizes that “there is a socio-politics of genre,” which means that, underlying the concept of genre as an organizing category, “there is always a frame of expectation that stems from a cultural knowledge of a society’s practices of writing.” Consequently, envisaging this particular kind of prose fiction we are dealing with as novel, as well as the novel as a genre, requires a re-evaluation of some basic principles of rhetoric and ancient literary theory.

In antiquity, the “narrative” (διήγησις) was a rhetorical component of the discourse as well as a literary and compositional technique. The treatises of exercises in composition and argument for students of rhetoric in late antiquity and in the Byzantine period (progymnasmata) comprised a repertoire of composition devices that the literary praxis makes use of, especially in the ancient and modern narratives. Some of these devices betray evidence of the overpowering shadow of Aristotle and the Peripatetics (Butts 1987, 6) and of Plato and Quintilian, and were later revisited in the light of modern trends in literary theory. The rhetoricians of the Second Sophistic made up a theory of narrative, and the notion of verisimilitude is closely connected with it. Theon affirms that the desirable qualities of διήγησις are: clarity (σαφήνεια), conciseness (συντομία), and credibility (πιθανότης).⁸ Quintilian (Inst. 4.2.31–32) agrees entirely that narratio should be lucida, breuis, and uerisimilis. Concerning the last of these qualities, Theon claims that:

ὑπέρ γε μὴν του̑ πιθανὴν εναι διήγησιν παραληπτέον λέξεις μὲν προσθυει̑ς τοι̑ς τε προσώpοις καὶ τοι̑ς πράγμασι καὶ τοι̑ς τόποις καὶ τοι̑ς καιροι̑ς∙ πράγματα δὲ ὅσα εἰκότα ἐστὶ καὶ ἀλλήλοις ἀκόλουθα. Δει̑ δὲ καὶ τὰς αἰτίας βραχέως προστιθέναι τῃ̑ διηγήσει, καὶ τὸ ἀπιστομενον πιστω̑ς λέγειν. Καὶ ἁπλω̑ς στοχάζεσται προσήκει του̑ πρέποντος τῳ̑ τε προσώπῳ καὶ τοῳς ἄλλοις στοιχείοις τη̑ς διηγήσεως κατά τε τὰ πράγματα καὶ κατὰ τὴν λέξιν. (“In order for the narrative to be credible, one should employ styles that are natural for the speakers and suitable for the subjects and the places and the occasions, and in the case of the subjects, those that are probable and follow from each other. One should briefly add the causes of things to the narration and say what is incredible in a believable way, and, simply put, it is suitable to aim at what is appropriate to the speaker and to the other elements of the narration in content and in style.” (Theon 5.84)⁹

The sophists’ theories about the power of the logos reinforced the idea that, to persuade an audience, a speech should preferably, not to say solely, base itself upon what seems to be true, that is, upon what is plausible (or verisimilar), which is more convincing than reality itself.

According to Gorgias, the delight and persuasive effect of a speech do not depend on the truthfulness of its arguments, but on the skill with which it is devised and written (cf. Gorgias, Hel. 13: …δεύτερον δὲ τοὺς ἀναγκαίους διὰ λόγων ἀγω̑νας, ἐν ος ες λόγος πολὺν ὄχλον ἔτερψε καὶ ἔπεισι τέχνηι γραφείς, οὐκ ἀληθείαι λεχθείς: “…second, logically necessary debates in which a single speech, written with art but not spoken with truth, bends a great crowd and persuades”). This skill or mastery that Gorgias refers to is obviously linked to the ability to produce, by using the adequate rhetorical devices, “belief” (πιθανόν), upon which relies the persuasive effect of the speech. Plato was one of the first authors in antiquity to establish some of the principles of the “rhetoric of verisimilitude.” In Timaeus 48d he claims that the διήγησις (in philosophical matters) should not be ἄτοπος (absurd) or ἀήθης (incoherent), but rather that it should lead to probable opinions, and in Phaedrus 260a, the criteria of verisimilitude are said to fall within the sphere of appearance and probability. Persuasion, says Phaedrus, “comes from what seems to be true, not from the truth,” and he also says that “an orator does not need to know what is good or just, but what would seem good or just to the multitude who are to pass judgment […]”; see also Arist. Pol. 1460a 26: Προαιρει̑σθαί τε δει̑ ἀδύνατα εἰκότα μα̑λλον ἢ δυνατὰ ἀπίθανα (“what is convincing though impossible should always be preferred to what is possible and unconvincing”) and 1461b 9: πρός τε γὰρ τὴν ποίησιν αἱρετώτερον πιθανὸν ἀδύνατον ἢ ἀπίθανον καὶ δυνατόν (“for poetic effect, a convincing impossibility is preferable to that which is unconvincing though possible”); see also Rh. Al. 30 1438 b, 1–4.

If we apply the preceding principles, concepts, notions, and features to the various types of fictional prose writing that proliferated in the burgeoning and complex Greco-Roman world in the first centuries AD, there is no problem in designating the Historia Apollonii regis Tyri, Euhemerus’ and Iambulus’ utopias and fantastic travel, and Lucian’s Verae Historiae as “novel” or “romance.” And why not include in the genre of ancient novel Ps.-Clement’s Recognitiones, which Szepessy (1985–1988) includes in what he calls “the ancient family novel,” along with Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana and other hagiographic narratives, the Pseudepigraphic Letters, The Romance of Alexander by the Ps.-Callisthenes, the so-called “Trojan Novels” (Dictys Cretensis’ Ephemeris belli Troiani and Dares Phrygius’ Acta diurna belli Troiani) or still The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles? Is there not, one wonders, another criterion to limit the bounds of genre? The answer to this question is to be found in a letter written by the Roman emperor Julian in the year 363 AD (89 B Bidez-Cumont, 301b), in which he advises his priests against the reading of all made-up stories (πλάσματα) in historical guise (ἑν ἱστρορίας εἴδει), the ἐρωτικὰς ὑποθέσεις, love stories that arouse passions. And here lies the key that enables us to come full circle concerning the matter under study: an erotic element is also a distinctive feature of the “ancient novel”; authors themselves stress this: Chariton declares, in the beginning of the novel, that he intends to tell a love story (πάθος ἐρωτικόν, 1.1.1) and, in the proem of Daphnis and Chloe, Longus describes the story he is about to tell as a love story (ἱστρορίαν ἔρωτος, 1.1.1).

In short, the genre of the novel can be defined according to three fundamental factors: a narrative structure, the verisimilitude of the story, and the erotic motif. To what extent do these texts fit into this pattern? Assuming that any study of genre should be confined to complete works, and that some types of prose-writing we are dealing with appear in a fragmentary or summarized form, it seems evident that not all can be labeled “novels.” Some lack one or another of those three components, such as The Life of Alexander by the Ps.-Callisthenes, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus, and The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, which should be included in the category of “fictionalized biographies.” In turn, The True Story by Lucian belongs to the sub-genre of the fantastic novel. Thus, the criteria mentioned in the preceding text substantially reduce the scope of texts that can be included in the genre of the novel. There is indeed a set of works sharing such clear similarities that set them apart from the remaining literary production in antiquity and legitimize their inclusion in a polyphonic, dialogic, and pluri-generic kind of prose narrative. Even without there being a proper name for it for centuries, the way of “telling” a story has lasted to this day, giving rise to one of the most fecund, trans-national,¹⁰ and everlasting literary genres (for the reception of the ancient novel and its literary and cultural heritage, see Futre Pinheiro and Harrison 2011). And this genre is undoubtedly the genre of the novel.

Notes

1 Ancient authors classified these works according to the categories of the preexisting genres: mythos, diegema, historia, drama, komodia, syntagma, plasma, pathos in Greek, and fabulae, argumentum, narratio in Latin. This means that they did not acknowledge the existence of a specific new genre, but rather widened the scope of existing genres to accommodate this new narrative production.

2 Fowler 1982, Chapter 11, p. 191, for the quote; genre mixture (ποικιλία) was a phenomenon widely known in antiquity. Plato (Rep. 397 d4) defends the unmixed type of diction, imitator of the good, and is adamant when it comes to the mixture of genres, which, in his view, is highly responsible for political degeneration (Laws 700a–701c).

3 For a discussion of the concept of “generic classes,” see Schaeffer 1989, 64–78. In turn, Fowler 1982, 37ff., prefers the term “types” rather than “classes” because, in his view, the former excludes the taxonomic rigidity that is associated with the notion of “class.” The notion of “type” is therefore introduced to make it clearer that the genre theory deals with principles of reconstruction, interpretation, and, in a way, evaluation of meaning rather than with classification. In the wake of Plato’s and Aristotle’s distinctions, Genette 1979 states that genres are literary categories while modes, deriving from a particular kind of enunciation, are linguistic categories. The former are subject to historical circumstances while the latter, on the contrary, are universal and ahistorical.

4 On the concept of literary canon, Fowler 1979, 97, states that: “The literature we criticize and theorize about is never the whole. At most we talk about sizable subsets of the writers and works of the past. This limited field is the current literary canon.” Fowler 1979, 98, further stresses that the literary canon varies from age to age and reader to reader according to literary fashion and tastes, and “the idea of canon certainly implies a collection of works enjoying an exclusive completeness (at least for a time).”

5 For a full range of scholarly discussion on the various existing theories and views, see, inter alios, Lesky 1941, van Thiel 1971, Schlam 1971, Anderson 1976, Holzberg 1984, Kussl 1990, Mason 1978, 1994 and 1999, Sandy 1994a, Schlam–Finkelpearl 2000, 36–41, Nimis 2000, Harrison 2003, 500–502, Frangoulidis 2008, 13–14, and Ramelli 2013, 145–148. On the other hand, the recurrent use of certain motifs and the literary structure of the Onos, which in many aspects reminds one of the conventional structure of the Greek love-and-adventure narratives, has led some authors to conclude that the Onos was a parody of that type of works. See, for example, van Thiel 1971 and Holzberg 1995. Sandy 1994a and Fusillo 1994 put forward an opposite view.

6 See Rohde 1914, 583–591, Perry 1967, and Helm 1948, 1956, who agree with the division between the serious, idealized novel and the comic, burlesque novel, and Wehrli 1965 and Anderson 1982 who disagree with such a division. We can also find a dichotomy between the ideal Greek novel and the Roman comic novel in Hägg 1983. Bakhtin 1978 also points out that the two main trends of the European novel (the love-and-adventure novel, which is static and monologic, and the Menippean and “carnivalesque” trend, which is dialogic and farcical), are the natural successors to the two types of the ancient novel: the erotic Greek novel, and the Roman novel, whose archetypes are Petronius and Apuleius. For a full assessment of the relation of Petronius’ Satyrica to the Greek love romances, see Setaioli 2011.

7 According to Prince 1982, 4–5: “Narratology is the study of the form and functioning of narrative. … Narratology examines what all narratives have in common—narratively speaking—and what allows them to be narratively different. … As for its primary task, it is the elaboration of instruments leading to the explicit description of narratives and the comprehension of their functioning.”

8 Theon 5.79; Kennedy 2003, 29 [Patillon and Bolognesi 2002, 40]. For Theon, I have followed Patillon and Bolognesi 2002; Theon’s translations are from Kennedy 2003. Phaedrus’ translation is taken from Fowler 1971. The text of Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen is from Diels and Kranz 1952. The English version is from Kennedy 2001. For the text of The Poetics, I have followed Fyfe’s 1973 edition and translation.

9 See Kennedy 2003, 33 [Patillon and Bolognesi 2002, 46–47]. See also Theon 3.105 and 4.76–77, and Butts, 1987, 249, n. 34. “Verisimilitude” (πιθανότης: “plausibility,” “credibility,” or “believability”) is a major concern in rhetoric, as stated by Cicero (Inv. Rhet. 1.21.29) and Quintilian (Inst. 4.2.52). For an overview of the concept of diegesis (narratio) in ancient rhetoric and literary theory, see Futre Pinheiro (forthcoming).

10 I owe Prof. Sandra Guardini T. Vasconcelos the designation of the novel as a trans-national genre. I’m also grateful to her for providing me the text of her paper (“Deslocamento: o romance como gênero inter-nacional”).

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CHAPTER 12

The Genre of the Novel

A Theoretical Approach

Notes

References

Further Readings