Longus

Longus Synopsis

This edition of Daphnis and Chloe , the best known of the Greek romances, provides the first modern commentary in English on this intriguing work. This is the story of two young people growing up as goatherd and shepherdess, and their discovery of love, sex and their true selves. Beneath the charm of its deceptively simple surface, this novel explores perennial questions about the naturalness of conventional gender relations, about the roles of instinct and culture in love, about the pain and responsibilities involved in becoming an adult, and ultimately about the relationship between Art and Nature, Fiction and Truth. Morgan presents a sequential reading of the novel, using the tools of modern literary theory to explain how narrative articulates meaning, and exploring Longus' creative dialogue with the literary tradition. The Greek text and English translation are on facing pages.