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194 BOOK REVI EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS Ch. 7, "Reality and the Drama", completes S.'s biography (begun in ch. 3), taking it from exile in 41 to his death in 65, but concentrating, by the nature of the sources, on the period after Nero's succession in 54. This is of course a fascinating story, and it loses nothing in P,IS retelling. Despite his careful warning that none of the tragedies is necessarily Neronian in date, and his proper rejection of supposed political allusions in them (191f.J, the implication remains that the darkness of the plays somehow reflects the horrors of Neronian Rome. One may wonder, however, whether there were not enough horrors in the reigns of earlier emperors, and in the last century of the Republic, to inject an obsession with violent passion and action into S. 's mind. The book concludes with a coda on "Melodrama", which argues briefly that this is the correct description of the dralTlzs. Reviewers are never satisfied, but in fact there is much in this book to be grateful for. It is a useful guide to the substance and trends of twentieth-century criticism not only of the tragedies but also of S.'s life and prose works, and of Stoicism and declamation. It exhibits the incisiveness and the wide-ranging but lightly-worn learning of a mature scholar. The book is well produced and contains few errors (though S. did not spend 16 years convalescing in Egypt, p.40). If its central thesis is unpersuasive, it may nevertheless stimulate other critics to work out alternative accounts of the origins and qualities of these remarkable dramas. UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA JOHN G. FITCH TOMAS HAGG. The Novel in Antiquity. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983. Pp. Xii, 264, 90 illustrations. Cloth, US $30.00. ISBN 0-520-04923-3. Professor Hagg of Bergen is already well known to students of the ancient novel through his earlier book on narrative-technique. The present book in its basic form first appeared in Swedish as Den Antika Romanen (1980), but Hagg has exploited the opportunity offered by the English version to touch up the narrative, to enhance the attractive illustrations, and to bring the bibliography up to date. Professor Pierce of Bergen and Professor Bryan Reardon share some of the credit for the elegance of this most useful book, the best popular account imaginable of the ancient novel and its influence. After a brief consideration of the appropriateness of the term romance and novel to describe Greek and Roman fiction, Hagg devotes a long chapter to the Greek ideal romances. He offers systematic analyses of the two "presophistic" works by Chariton and Xenophon and of the three " sophistic" romances of Achilles Tatius, Longus and Hel iodorus. The texture of the novels is usefully exemplified by extracts from the English translations soon to be published under the guidance of Professor Reardon by the University of California Press. Hagg takes a conservative view of the purpose and tone of the BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 195 novels, as is desirable in a work of synthesis of this kind; he has little sympathy with the adventurous attempt of Graham Anderson to demonstrate conscious elements of humour and burlesque throughout the genre. The chapter usefully incorporates a brief survey of lamblichus' Babylonian Tale, and closes with a consideration of Macrembolites' Hysmme and Hysminias to exemplify the Byzantine adaptations of the "SOphistIC" tradItion. Hagg follows these analyses of plots and characters with two chapters on the social background and the literary pedigree of the novels. Here we are on ground made familiar in recent years by Perry and by Reardon; though there is little which is original here, the handling is always well-informed and the conclusions judicious. The following chapter pursues the fortunes of the Greek novel into the medieval period by analysis of the Alexander-romance of Ps.- ~:~~:~~~~ne:r~c~o~~~a~i~; ~~dAI~~a~~~U/i~nY t~: ~~d~feni~;e~fr~s>t~\ar:~; on the strand of fiction, though we must not forget that there is also a ',istorical strand, reflected by Curtius Rufus, which is even more important for Walter of Chatillon's influential...

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