{"product_id":"the-shadow-of-an-ass-philosophical-choice-and-aesthetic-experience-in-apuleius-metamorphoses-9780472133567","title":"The Shadow of an Ass: Philosophical Choice and Aesthetic Experience in Apuleius' Metamorphoses","description":"Jeffrey Ulrich's\u003ci\u003e The Shadow of an Ass \u003c\/i\u003eaddresses fundamental questions about the reception and aesthetic experience of Apuleius'\u003ci\u003e Metamorphoses\u003c\/i\u003e, popularly known as \u003ci\u003eThe Golden Ass\u003c\/i\u003e, by situating the novel in a contemporaneous literary and philosophical discourse emerging in the Second Sophistic. This unique Latin novel follows a man who is accidentally turned into a donkey because of his curiosity, viewing the world through a donkey's eyes until he is returned to human form by the Egyptian goddess Isis. In the end, he chooses to become a cult initiate and priest instead of a debased and overindulgent ass. On the one hand, the novel encourages readers to take pleasure in the narrator's experiences, as he relishes food, sex, and forbidden forms of knowledge. Simultaneously, it challenges readers to reconsider their participation in the story by exposing its donkey-narrator as a failed model of heroism and philosophical investigation. Ulrich interprets the \u003ci\u003eMetamorphoses\u003c\/i\u003e as a locus of philosophical inquiry, positioning the act of reading as a choice of how much to invest in this tale of pleasurable transformation and unanticipated conversion. \u003ci\u003eThe Shadow of an Ass\u003c\/i\u003e further explores how Apuleius, as a North African philosopher translating an originally Greek novel into a Latin idiolect, transforms himself into an intermediary of Platonic philosophy for his Carthaginian audience. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Situating the novel in a long history of philosophical and literary conversations, Ulrich suggests that the \u003ci\u003eMetamorphoses \u003c\/i\u003eanticipates much of the philosophical burlesque we tend to associate with early modern fiction, from Don Quixote to Lewis Carroll.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJeffrey P. Ulrich\u003c\/b\u003e is Assistant Professor of Classics at Rutgers University.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Michigan Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50901263024402,"sku":"9780472133567","price":93.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_01a8a9b2-aefb-41a5-bb3b-a1f244cb3216.jpg?v=1738419216","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-shadow-of-an-ass-philosophical-choice-and-aesthetic-experience-in-apuleius-metamorphoses-9780472133567","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}