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Who Reads Ancient Novels? Reading Fiction in Antiquity

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Abstract

This article explores the corpus of Greek texts from antiquity known as the ancient novels and their reception history from antiquity to the modern world in order to shed new light on the long-debated question of who read ancient novels. While the term ‘novel’ implies a continuity between the familiar modern genre and its ancient counterpart, a closer look at the history of the term, the ancient texts themselves, and the evidence for their reception from antiquity onwards invites us to rethink our assumptions. By interrogating what is at stake in terming these ancient narratives novels, this article to offer a more nuanced understanding of the reception of these fictional narratives in antiquity and beyond.

How to Cite:

Jackson, C., (2021) “Who Reads Ancient Novels? Reading Fiction in Antiquity”, Tetradio 30(1): 4, 83–103. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tetradio.91895