Unfulfilled Prolepses in the Ancient Greek Novels: Virtual Worlds, Time Warps, and Closure

Benedek Kruchió

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Chapter 8 Unfulfilled Prolepses in the Ancient Greek Novels

Virtual Worlds, Time Warps, and Closure

In: Prolepsis in Ancient Greek Narrative

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Benedek Kruchió

Benedek Kruchió
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 159–177

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004715530_009

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Abstract

This contribution challenges widely accepted views on the aesthetic effect of prolepses as well as their formal relationship to analepses. Using select passages from the Greek novelistic corpus as case studies, this chapter explores, in particular, how anachronies can generate interpretative spaces and how the reader might grapple with these. The first part is concerned with the relationship between prolepsis and analepsis. At the beginning of Heliodorus’s Aethiopica, Charicleia, the protagonist, understands her adventures as resulting from alleged past offences. While this reference concerns the narrated past, it raises an expectation that the hinted events will be revealed later in the plot: what is an analepsis on one level has a proleptic effect on another. The handling of narrative order in Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Cleitophon results in related entanglements: various analeptic and proleptic references to the section of the love-story that is omitted by the novelist highlight the irritating relationship between a narrative ending that precedes the beginning without coming full circle. The second part of this contribution discusses the role of prolepses in narrative endings: as Chariton’s Callirhoe and the Aethiopica showcase, external prolepsis can both promote readerly uncertainty and, paradoxically, strengthen closure.

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Prolepsis in Ancient Greek Narrative

Definitions, Forms and Effects

Series: The Language of Classical Literature, Volume: 40

Cover Prolepsis in Ancient Greek Narrative

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004715530

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 17 Dec 2024

Subjects
- Classical Studies
  - Greek & Latin Literature

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Chapter 8 Unfulfilled Prolepses in the Ancient Greek Novels

Virtual Worlds, Time Warps, and Closure

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Prolepsis in Ancient Greek Narrative

Definitions, Forms and Effects

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