Love and Providence: Recognition in the Ancient Novel by Silvia Montiglio (review)

Montiglio’s monograph is a thorough investigation into the theme of recognition in ancient narrative fiction, and addresses the lack of a full inquiry into this genre’s treatment of the motif. Her overarching thesis is that ancient novels provide a locus for experimentation with and development of recognition scenes, launching recognition on a new trajectory that is picked up by later writers. Thus ancient narrative fiction has a crucial part to play in the evolution of recognition as a literary trope. Montiglio focuses on the treatment of recognition as a motif in the canonical Greek novels before moving on to discuss the difference in approach in the two Roman novels and finally demonstrating how recognition is used in Apollonius King of Tyre and two works of novelistic fiction from the Jewish and Christian traditions, Joseph and Aseneth and the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions. In an epilogue she outlines ancient narrative’s significance for the treatment of the theme in early modern fiction. Montiglio is careful to demonstrate that novelistic recognition, while taking its lead from recognition scenes in earlier literature, becomes a trope in its own right. Each novelist utilizes recognition in a way that matches the character and priorities of his novel. Montiglio focuses on recognition of personal identity and not moral or psychological recognition, ¹ as this is not (with a few exceptions) what the novels promote. Montiglio terms recognitions in the Greek novel “horizontal” or “circular”—that is, they are recognitions of a beloved and often the plot takes the couple back to where they came from; this is in contrast with the “vertical” recognitions of religious truth found in Jewish and Christian narratives. Throughout her analysis Montiglio engages with fundamental questions about how recognition functions within and relates to the plot and thought-world of each text, how novelistic recognitions resonate with recognitions in other genres, and how the texts intertwine recognition of identity with stories about love.

In the first three chapters Montiglio’s detailed analysis of recognition in the Greek novels reveals the influences of epic, tragedy and comedy upon the genre and also demonstrates the ways in which the novels recast the motif. For example, she argues that Xenophon uses an extraordinarily slow and protracted recognition scene in the Ephesiaca to play up stock features of tragic recognition as well as Aristotelian taxonomy. Montiglio also investigates how the novels set up and pull against their own formulae for recognitions. In Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon misrecognition aids the forward movement of the plot, to prevent it short-circuiting, and also highlights Clitophon’s unreliability as narrator of his own love-affair: his not recognizing Leucippe dressed as a slave, even when she speaks, “invalidates Clitophon’s aspiration to be seen as a model novelistic hero” (70–71). Both Achilles Tatius and Longus push the boundaries of the motif and the genre. In Leucippe and Clitophon the recognition scene between the protagonists remains incomplete because of the presence of Leucippe’s father and the trial and travel afterwards. Montiglio asserts that Clitophon (/Achilles Tatius) reinvents recognition in a manner contrary to traditional patterns, and the unfinished nature of the recognition scene reflects the novel’s lack of closure. In Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe recognition of identity is entwined with initiation into, and recognition of, love. It is not to the details of the recognition scenes that Longus gives weight, but to the impact they have on the surrounding narrative: there is a suggestion of either suicide or sex outside marriage after Daphnis’ recognition, and only Chloe’s recognition puts a stop to this potential non-novelistic narrative. Montiglio argues that misrecognition and appearance versus reality are exploited to the full in the Aethiopica. Heliodorus problematises the connection between reading and recognizing: his penchant for hermeneutics turns the whole narrative into an exercise in reading recognition. Most importantly for Montiglio’s main argument Chariton and Heliodorus, at either end of the novelistic...