Daphnis and Chloe by Longus

Daphnis and Chloe by Longus

'he sat down and wept, to think that even the rams knew more about the deeds of love than he did' Daphnis is fifteen years old, Chloe thirteen. They are drawn to each other and long to make love. But no one has told them what love is, nor do they know how to accomplish the physical act. Round their predicament Longus weaves a fantasy which entertains and instructs, but never errs in taste. The hard toil and precariousness of peasant life are here, but so are its compensations - revelry, music, dance, and storytelling. Above the action brood divine presences - Eros, Dionysus, Pan, the Nymphs - who collaborate to guide the adolescents into the mystery of Love, at once a sensual and a religious initiation. Daphnis and Chloe is the best known, and the best, of the early Greek romances, precursors to the modern novel. Admired by Goethe, it has been reinterpreted in music and art by Ravel and Chagall. This new translation is immensely readable, and does full justice to the humour and humanity of the story.

Nothing is known about Longus. His name may indicate that he was a native of Italy who wrote in Greek.

Paul Turner was born in 1917, and educated at Winchester and King's College, Cambridge. He served in the RNVR (air branch) during the war, and then taught English literature at London, Cambridge, and Ankara universities, before joining the Oxford English Faculty in 1964. He is now an Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. He has published a volume on the Victorians in the Oxford History of English Literature, and his translations from Greek, Latin, and German include Longus's Daphnis and Chloe, Lucian's Satirical Sketches, and Ovid's Art of Love. His critical biography of Thomas Hardy came out in 1998, and his edition of Robert Browning's Aristophanes' Apology in 2001. In 2002 he was made an MBE.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780199554959
ISBN 10	0199554951
Title	Daphnis and Chloe
Author	Longus
Series	Oxford World's Classics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	2009-05-28
Number of pages	144
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.