Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article presents an interpretation of some functions performed by ekphrastic structures in the context of Ancient fictional narrative prose. Concrete examples are taken from two Ancient Greek novels: Daphnis and Chloe by Longus and Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius. Using Olga Freidenberg’s conceptual and interpretative apparatus as a lens for reading the textual material, the central claim of the article is that within Ancient prose narrative, ekphrasis and metaphor are functionally interrelated, with ekphrasis serving to metaphorically embed narrative content within the mythological, affective, and genre-related fields of the textual production of meaning. At the same time, while adopting Freidenberg’s definition of metaphor as a primal state of cognitive indistinction between image and concept, the article attempts to go beyond her mythological interpretation of the Ancient novel and to provide a more socially and historically relevant understanding of the semantic features of this genre.
Source: Linguistic Frontiers
DOI: 10.2478/lf-2024-0020
Author: Bogdana Paskaleva
Institution: Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4405987621