Le roman érotique grec et les eschatypes (I)
Rezumat
Greek Erotic Novel and Eschatypes
Abstract: Ancient Greek erotic novels focus on the love between two young people who are united in marriage only after going through a series of adventures designed to test their seriousness and stability as a couple. Considered by commentators as an expression of rites of passage and initiation, these novels are governed by the tension between two opposing forces: a centripetal force, symbolized by Olympian deities such as Eros, Aphrodite, Artemis or Isis, and a centrifugal, disruptive force, represented by fate, Tyche, or Fortuna. The protagonists of the novels authored by Chariton, Xenophon, Achilles Tatius, Longus and Heliodorus are taken out of “biographical time”, i.e., the stasis of the family and the city, and plunged into “adventure time”, that is, into a series of spectacular episodes from which they ultimately emerge victorious. Using the concepts I propose for the analysis of narrative configurations, I identify the two opposing and complementary tendencies as archetypal versus anarchetypal. The outcome of their combination points to the structuring of ancient erotic novels as eschatypes.
Keywords: Greek erotic novel, Chariton, Xenophon, Achille Tatius, Longos, Heliodorus, biographical time, adventure time, archetype, anarchetype, eschatype.
Citation suggestion: Braga, Corin. “Le roman érotique grec et les eschatypes (I)”. Transilvania, no.11 (2025): 64-73.
https://doi.org/10.51391/trva.2025.11.08.
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