Adultery In Fiction

An analysis of Lysias' first oration in light of the typical adultery tale. This study explores some as yet unappreciated ironic touches in Euphiletus' account and examines some of the deeper structures that inform his seemingly transparent narrative. The article then considers the historicity of the speech: while certainty is impossible, there are indications that Lysias 1 could represent a rhetorical exercise, designed both to display the logographer's skill and to entertain.

The attractions Roopa experienced and the fantasies she entertained as a teen shaped a male imagery that ensconced her subconscious. Insensibly, confident carriage came to be associated with the image of maleness in her mind-set. Her acute consciousness of masculinity only increased her vulnerability to it, making her womanliness crave for the maleness for its gratification.

However, as her father was constrained to help her in becoming a doctor, she opts to marry, hoping that Sathyam might serve her cause though the persona she envisioned as masculine, she found lacking in him. But as he fails to go with her idea, she becomes apathetic towards him, and insensibly sinks into her friend Sandhya’s embrace, for lesbian solace.

Soon, in a dramatic sequence of events, Tara, a suave call girl, tries to rope Roopa into her calling; Roopa herself loses her heart to Sandhya's beau Raja Rao, and Prasad, her husband’s friend falls for her. And as Prasad begins to induce Sathyam to be seduced by whores to worm his way into her affections, Roopa finds herself in a dilemma. However, as fate puts Raja Rao into Roopa’s arms in such a way as to lend novelty to fiction, this ‘novel’ nuances man-woman chemistry on one hand, and portrays woman-woman empathy on the other.

Who said the novel is dead; 'Benign Flame' raises the bar as vouched by -

The plot is quite effective and it’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs - Spencer Critchley, Literary Critic, U.S.A.

The author has convinced the readers that love is something far beyond the marriage tie and the fulfillment love can be attained without marriage bondage. The author has achieved a minor revolution without any paraphernalia of revolution in the fourth part of the novel – The Quest, India.

The author makes free use of – not interior monologue as such, but – interior dialogue of the character with the self, almost resembling the dramatic monologue of Browning. Roopa, Sandhya, Raja Rao and Prasad to a considerable extent and Tara and Sathyam to a limited degree indulge in rationalization, trying to analyse their drives and impulses – The Journal of Indian Writing in English.

Overall, Benign Flame is a unique attempt at exploring adult relationships and sexuality in the contemporary middle-class. All the characters come alive with their cravings and failings, their love and their lust. Benign Flame blurs the lines and emphasizes that life is not all black and white - it encompasses the full spectrum of living - Indian Book Chronicle.

This book -
Dedicated to Naagamani, my better half
who still leaves no stone unturned for my fulfillment -
comprises of
1. Ramaiah’s Family
2. Realities of Life
3. Hapless Hope
4. Turn at the Tether
5. Moorings of Marriage
6. World within the World 
7. Roopa’s En Passant 
8. Threshold of Temptation
9. Sathyam’s Surrender
10. Sandhya’s Sojourn
11. Match in the Making
12. Poignant Moment
13. Wedding Season
14.  Veil of Fate
15. Naughty Nuptials
16. Tidings of Love
17. Tentative Moves
18. Fetishes of Fantasy
19. Curtain of Courtesy
20. Blueprint in the Offing
21. Enduring Longing
22. Villainy of Life
23. Playboy at Play
24. Scheming the Theme
25. Device of Deceit
26. Software of Detour
27. Tara’s Theory
28. Night of the Mates
29. A Brimming Romance 
30. Euphoric Forays
31. Living the Dream
32. Chat at the Bar
33. Amour on Rein
34. Surge of a Merge 
35. Date with Destiny
36. Threesome Sail
37. End of an Innings
38. Subdued Beginning

In an attempt to shed light on the exchange between Amphitruo and Alcumena at Plautus, Amphitruo 831-36, this paper examines a widespread comic tradition involving the faithless wife's exploitation of an equivocal oath to conceal her guilt. Ironically, Alcumena's earnest protestations of fidelity conform precisely to the tradition, recalling the brazen half-truths of the typical comic adulteress while simultaneously enhancing the impression of the human agents in this work as unwitting players in a divinely staged farce.

Abstract in italiano: Contributo alla riflessione sull’intertestualità e sul romanzo moderno, il volume studia minuziosamente il Werther e La nouvelle Héloïse come ipotesti delle Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis nelle sue tre prime stesure (la “parte del Sassoli”, la prima parte dell’Ortis 98 e l’Ortis 1802 e in tal modo delinea tre diverse concezioni dell’Io moderno e del nodo natura, famiglia, passione, amore coniugale, adulterio, a cui si intreccia, nel caso di Foscolo, che lancia il Risorgimento, anche l’amore di patria. A Rousseau che edifica nella sua fantasia un “paese delle chimere”, Goethe risponde rappresentando, con crudo realismo ma anche con la serenità del poeta che contempla dall’alto l’enigma dell’universo, gli intricati sentieri degli uomini su questa terra. Tornando in parte a Rousseau, forte inoltre della lezione tragica e eroica di Alfieri, Foscolo misura l’uomo con il metro della guerra e delle sue pulsioni ferine, ci insegna un mondo senza Provvidenza e senza progresso, ma in cui l’amore può nascere, come espiazione e consolazione, dal male subito e dal male fatto. Proprio in questo è vicino a noi, lettori dell’inizio di XXI secolo, che non abbiamo ancora dimenticato i massacri del precedente.

Abstract in English: As a contribution on hypertextuality and on modern novel, the book explores Goethe’s «Werther» (1774) and Rousseau’s «La nouvelle Héloïse» (1761) as hypotexts of Foscolo’s «Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis» (1802). It so outlines three différentes views of modern subjectivity and of the relationship between nature, family, passion, married love and adultery.

In the second half of the 1st cent. BC, the status of the woman, with its
symbol - the particular dress, was among main topics in the controversy
over sexual offences. Sexual intercourse was illicit only if committed with
respectable women; on the contrary, women that did not possess the dignity,
which could be diminished with fornication (prostitutes, actresses,
slaves, freedwomen), were therefore at the disposal to all. All these topics:
the status, the dress, and various categories of women appear in Horace’s
Satires as well as in Augustus’ laws. The legislator and the satirist are inspired
by the Roman moral tradition; therefore, the treatment of these topics
varies only where the legislator innovates, departing from the ancient
moral code. The keyword of the controversy is matrona. In the literature of
Augustus’ times, as well as in the lex Iulia, matrona often stands for women
engaged in adultery or stuprum; its frequent use in Satires, exclusively for
adulteresses, indicates that the public discourse influenced Horace’s writings
on the lexical level as well.
The right of the cuckolded husband to revenge was another controversial
topic. Adulterer could have been, as Horace testifies, killed, flogged,
beaten, castrated or raped. All these punishments, besides sexual violence,
are well attested in other literary and legal sources; therefore, there is a
great probability that they were indeed practiced. On the other hand, rape,
as punishment for adultery, appears only in satire and epigram, which
indicates that such punishments were probably a product of literary fiction.
A list of punishments similar to one offered by Horace appears in
the compendium of Valerius Maximus, indicating that the satirist and the
rhetorician might had been familiar with the same or similar compilation
or handbook. Many other calamities that threaten the adulterer in Satires
are borrowed from the mime; their main aim is to amuse the reader.
Husband could give up his right to revenge in return for the certain
amount of money. Equity was legal, and practiced from Plautus times
onwards; though, it often aroused public disdain. Literates portray husbands
that accepted compensation as pimps; the motive became popular
at the end of the era. This contempt was codified by Augustus’ legislation,
which provided that a husband, who was aware of wife’s infidelity, and
did not prosecute adulterers, should be charged as pimp. Such provision
additionally testifies popularity of the aforementioned topic in the public
discourse of that time.

Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès – 25 mars 2022 – Maison de la Recherche – Salle F315

Les études sur la présence des femmes dans le droit pénal relèvent souvent un paradoxe : les femmes ont beau ne représenter qu’une infime partie des statistiques criminelles, leurs crimes pâtissent d’une forte charge symbolique qui mène à la constitution d’archétypes-repoussoirs – de l’empoisonneuse à l’infanticide en passant par la maquerelle, la sorcière ou la femme adultère. Dans ce contexte, la foule des femmes criminelles que l’on retrouve dans la littérature – des fabliaux médiévaux aux nouvelles et pièces théâtrales de l’époque moderne – apparaît autant comme la traduction sur le papier de phénomènes sociaux diffus que comme une étape de l’élaboration des archétypes, influençant à son tour l’écriture de la loi et la pratique quotidienne de la justice.
Or, si ne manquent sur le sujet ni les études historiques ni les analyses de figures littéraires, force est de constater que ces approches sont rarement menées de front, ce qui revient à sous-estimer le rapport dialectique entre les deux aspects.
En outre, alors que les réflexions d’ensemble sur la criminalité féminine à l’époque contemporaine sont riches – comme il ressort de notre bibliographie indicative –, les études sur le Moyen-Âge et l’époque moderne souffrent encore d’une approche sectorielle, dans laquelle se détachent les figures de la prostituée, de la femme adultère et de l’empoisonneuse, chacune dotée de sa propre tradition historiographique. Nous nous efforcerons donc d’instaure

The author aims to present the work of Evdokia Nagrodskaia, a Russian author now fallen into oblivion. To do this, he briefly discusses the literary context of the time and her biography, before analyzing in greater depth her book The Wrath of Dionysus, which was a bestseller in Russia in the early 20th century. He tries, through the analysis of this novel, to rediscover a novelist both despised by the Russian intelligentsia for writing popular literature, and strongly criticized by the former censors for treating themes related both to female adultery, homosexuality and lesbianism. By that he’s trying to show that Nagrodskaia is primarily a novelist avant-garde which deals with libertinism far more than pornography and that her freethinking is both sexual and political.

María Gertrudis Hore (1742-1801), poetisa de renombre y religiosa calzada, fue mujer casada. Con la autorización de su esposo, Esteban Fleming, ingresó en el monasterio de Santa María del Arrabal, en 1778, con 35 años de edad. El 14 de febrero de 1780 hizo voto de clausura para siempre. Interesarnos por las verdaderas razones de su tardía entrada en religión nos condujo a la reconstitución científica de su trayectoria personal a través del estudio de su universo tanto social como religioso, apoyándonos en la reconstitución de su obra (hoy día casi ignorada) y en la atmósfera del Cádiz del setecientos. Palabras claves : poetisa, monja, misterio, Cádiz, Ilustración, libertinaje, secreto, viaje, clausura.
ABSTRACT : María Gertrudis Hore (1742-1801) was a famous poetess and religious. At the age of 35, in 1778, she entered a Franciscan convent under her husband’s authorization. Febrary 14th 1780 she took vow of silence for ever. Then, in order to try to understand the reasons why she entered religion at such a great age, we were thus able to come up with a social universe study and bibliographical reconstitution of her poetry ; to know more about this multi-facetted character of the historical period in the Age of Enlightenment.
Key words… : poetress, religious, mistery, Cadiz, Enlightenment, libertinage, secret, trip, clausure.

An examination of Wealth 160-69 sheds further light on the portrayal of adulterers (moichoi) in ancient Greek comedy and oratory. The moichos is routinely presented as undermining the financial fortunes of a household as well as its domestic harmony. On the Greek comic stage, and in the Athenian courtroom, the moichos is less a Don Juan figure than a treacherous intruder, intent on exploiting his seductive charms to the detriment of another male citizen's household. Such an understanding of the Greek moichos helps to shed light on figures such as the Eratosthenes of Lysias 1, the youthful lover in the concluding scenes of Wealth, and Apollodorus' presentation of the former slave Phormion. It also yields further insights into popular attitudes toward women and marriage.

In ancient Greek culture the comic portrayal of gods was already practiced in the Homeric epics (e.g. Iliad XIV 161-351, XXI 391-433, 470-513) and was essentially a manifestation of folk religiosity, which combined laughter and piety into an intrinsic unity. Similar burlesque narratives about divinities, including farcical slapstick and obscenity, are known from other ancient civilizations, such as the Hittites and the Egyptians. Demodocus’ song about the amours of Ares and Aphrodite (Odyssey VIII 266-366) exploits the narrative patterns of popular adultery novellas and transposes the scabrous storyline to the world of the Olympian gods. Afterwards, the Homeric technique inspired the mythological comedies of Classical Attic theatre, in which the divine personages were assimilated to the stereotypical roles of the comic stage.

Thèse soutenue le 2 décembre 2016 à l'Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès. Jury : Chiara Lastraioli (présidente), Frédérique Verrier (rapporteur), Davide Canfora (rapporteur), Jean-Luc Nardone (directeur de recherche), Ivano Paccagnella (directeur de recherche), Bernard Doumerc. Absence de mention selon la réforme de 2016.

Cette thèse confronte les deux figures féminines de la prostituée et de la femme adultère dans la société vénitienne du XVIe siècle. Elle aborde ces topoi dans une approche pluridisciplinaire qui mêle la lecture de textes littéraires tant publiés qu'inédits à l'étude des sources judiciaires de la Sérénissime. Loin de se contenter d'opposer une pulsion de liberté individuelle aux velléités de contrôle de l'appareil répressif, cette recherche entend préciser l'origine des tensions sexuelles dans les contradictions économiques, politiques et sociales qui régissent les rapports de genre dans la République de Venise. Dans un premier temps est définie la norme sexuelle et amoureuse de la société moderne, puis est précisée l'existence de plusieurs zones grises au sein desquelles amours licites et illicites se superposent, en particulier au moment de la séduction. Cette réflexion permet d'éclairer les spécificités de l'adultère féminin et de la prostitution comme formes de sexualité extra-conjugale. Nous pouvons ainsi tracer une histoire de la gestion de la prostitution par le gouvernement vénitien, qui reconnaît aux amours vénales un statut légal dont la classe dirigeante peut tirer profit, tout en montrant la complémentarité à son égard de la poésie antiputtanesca, souvent expression des préoccupations de cette même classe sociale. L'adultère est de la même manière envisagé comme une pratique contradictoire, violemment combattue par la loi mais partie intégrante du processus de formation des jeunes hommes avant leur mariage. Un aspect important du travail de recherche effectué consiste également dans la présentation de poèmes antiputtaneschi inédits, souvent anonymes, dont nous cherchons à reconstruire la riche intertextualité.


Discussed the 2 december 2016 in Toulouse, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès.

This dissertation aims to confront the two archetypes of the prostitute and the adulterous woman in the XVIth century Venetian society. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this text examines literary works – well known and unpublished – and the legal sources of the Serenissima. Looking beyond binary oppositions between individual desires for freedom and the repressive control apparatus by the State, this study works to clarify the ways in which the sexual tensions come from the economical, political and social contradictions which governed gender relationships in the republic of Venice. It first analyzes sexual and sentimental norms of the early-modern society. It will then define the ways in which licit and illicit love overlap, especially during the key moment of seduction. This will allow us to elucidate the specificities of female adultery and prostitution as forms of extra-conjugal sexuality. It will then be possible to trace the history of prostitution's management by the Venetian government. The latter recognized thea legal status of venal love, from which the ruling class could benefit. But we will also show how antiputtanesca poetry reflects the concerns of that social class. Adultery may similarly be seen as a contradictory practice, violently condemned by the law but part of young men's socialization before their wedding. Finally, one important aspect of this research stands in the presentation of various unpublished antiputtaneschi poems, often anonymous: we will display their rich intertextuality.

The “erotic” Greek novels place at the centre of the plot an orthodox, heterosexual, monogamous, and lifelong love affair between a young man and a maiden. By contrast, the so-called “open” or “fringe” novels (a group of diverse works which share some basic common traits, such as a linear biographical narrative, non-organic structure, a trickster protagonist, the mixture of many storytelling genres, and a fluid textual transmission) treat eros in a starkly different manner: love stories are pushed to the margins of the narrative, in peripheral episodes or inserted tales; and instead of the idealized, model love of the erotic novels, there is a variety of deviant passions, forbidden liaisons, or sexual aberrations. The creators of the “open” texts consciously adopted the exact opposite practice than the erotic novels, in order to clearly demarcate their genre as a different mode of fictional storytelling. The pathology of love thus became a marker of generic identity.

Four examples are adduced from the corpus of the “open” novels to illustrate this proposition. In the Alexander Romance the main narrative is completely devoid of eroticism, even in episodes which would have been suitable for such treatment. The only love affair is the adulterous liaison between Nectanebo and Queen Olympias, an unlawful and immoral relationship which leads to the birth of Alexander. This is placed in the preliminaries of the story, provides the starting point for the plot, but has no further reverberations after the initial chapters. Similarly, the Life of the Philosopher Secundus begins with a scene of near-incest, which motivates the rest of the narrative. The Historia Apollonii regis Tyri reworks some of the standard themes of the canonical erotic romances (the idealized monogamous love, the lovers’ separation and reunion, the maiden who struggles to preserve her virginity) but arranges them in unusual new combinations and distorts their form. This idiosyncratic fragmentation of the traditional love plot is prefaced by a horrendous episode of father-daughter incest, which sets the action in motion but is forgotten afterwards. Finally, the Life of Aesop includes a series of tales about various aspects of perverse eroticism (exhibitionism, nymphomania, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, rape, incest) — a veritable anthology of deviant sex dispersed through the narrative. These episodes are either inserted paradigmatic stories or secondary incidents without a central role in the plot. In these respects, the Life completely overturns the standard pattern of the erotic novels.

The author aims to present the work of Evdokia Nagrodskaia, a Russian author now fallen into oblivion. To do this, he briefly discusses the literary context of the time and her biography, before analyzing in greater depth her book The Wrath of Dionysus, which was a bestseller in Russia in the early 20th century. He tries, through the analysis of this novel, to rediscover a novelist both despised by the Russian intelligentsia for writing popular literature, and strongly criticized by the former censors for treating themes related both to female adultery, homosexuality and lesbianism. By that he’s trying to show that Nagrodskaia is primarily a novelist avant-garde which deals with libertinism far more than pornography and that her freethinking is both sexual and political.

Considers possible connections between the adultery narrative in Lysias' first oration (early 4th C. BC) and two episodes of Chariton's romantic novel, Chaireas and Callirhoe (1st/2nd C. AD). The various similarities detected by earlier studies are found to be grounded in traditional elements of the comic adultery tale, as well as in received attitudes toward women, marriage, and the family. More striking is Chariton's metatextual recollection of staged adultery narratives in Roman mime.

Most critics and readers of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) focus on the triangle formed by Helen Graham, her first husband Arthur Huntingdon and the second one Gilbert Markham. However, as I argue here, Brontë narrates yet another romantic story, that of Arthur and his mistress Annabella. Helen’s unhappiness is actually caused by Annabella’s earlier decision to marry a richer, aristocratic man rather than Arthur, whom she loves. Since Helen is Arthur’s second choice he never truly loves her, nor does Annabella love her husband Lord Lowborough. Arthur and Annabella’s irresistible passion and ensuing adultery ultimately destroys both marriages and are, thus, a central (but neglected) aspect of the plot. Likewise, both Annabella’s unique characterization as an adulteress and her adultery with Arthur have been overlooked as Anne Brontë’s singular contribution to the history of how this theme has been represented in British fiction.

A detta dello stesso autore, questa ricerca prende spunto da un enigma che abbraccia circa tre secoli di storia europea, nella lunga transizione che dal Medioevo porta agli albori della Modernità. L’enigma è rappresentato dall’ambigua e paradossale centralità assunta da un tema apparentemente frivolo, le «corna». Se da un lato c’è l’adulterio, che tutte le leggi condannano come una delle colpe più gravi, seria minaccia al buon ordine della società, dall’altro le corna ne costituiscono il lato ludico, faceto, la rielaborazione «mitica» di un argomento scottante. Nella realtà è la donna a pagare il prezzo della repressione, dato che all’uomo è concessa una libertà di costumi che rende l’adulterio un fenomeno tipicamente maschile, emblema della subalternità femminile. L’uomo, d’altra parte, assume il ruolo del protagonista: vittima di una pretesa tendenza al tradimento della donna, ma soprattutto eroe incontrastato di una cultura propriamente rinascimentale, tanto ossessionata dall’argomento «corna» da farne materia privilegiata di riso ed evasione. In quest’ampia e dettagliata analisi – che si avvale di un ricco e puntuale apparato documentario e bibliografico – le sfere della realtà e della finzione, del desiderio e della paura, della norma e della trasgressione si intrecciano per disegnare la geografia sessuale e sentimentale di un’intera epoca, ma tracciano pure le prime linee di un’evoluzione cruciale per la società europea, in particolare nel campo delle relazioni tra i sessi e dei costumi familiari.

Although Boccaccio and Cervantes are rightfully bound by their excellence in storytelling in the novella genre, adultery as a connection between their works has curiously not yet been sufficiently investigated. The words and actions of unfaithful wives Peronella, Monna Ghita, and Lidia on day 7 in Il Decameron, a day in which trickery of husbands (carried out either for love or self-preservation) is the theme, provide a template for Camila in El curioso impertinente. These married women assert themselves as protagonists in their respective stories, and all three successfully continue their extramarital affairs while simultaneously maintaining the public façade of marital honor.
Innovating on their adulterous schemes, Camila also establishes a happy ending between herself, husband, and lover, yet hers is ephemeral, due to circumstances beyond her control.

Adultery is often the subject of comic descriptions, focusing on the tricks of unfaithful wives or bold lovers and the stupidity of cuckolded husbands, and possibly inspired by popular adultery tales. Dramatization of adulterous affairs, though common in mime, was rarer in Greek comedy. It occurs in a few plays with contemporary setting, as well as in travesties of related myths (e.g. Helen’s abduction, or Zeus’ love for Alcmene).

Antiphanes, active from the 380s to the late fourth century BCE, was the most prolific dramatist of Middle Comedy. He probably wrote not only for Athenian festivals but also for other cities or itinerant troupes, and produced various types of play: mythological travesties, as well as domestic comedies with love plots and recognitions, heralding the style of New Comedy. He developed many comic figures which became standard characters in later drama (misanthrope, miser, superstitious man, boastful soldier, rustic, parasite, cook). He liked producing innovations on stock motifs and deftly exploited the resources of comic language.

deikelistai (meaning “mimes” or “impersonators”) was the local name for the performers of a type of folk comic play in Sparta. According to the Laconian historian Sosibius, their unsophisticated performances, conducted in simple language, concerned themes such as the stealing of fruit (also a traditional part of Spartan boys’ education) and the foreign doctor. Both these elements are paralleled in other varieties of Doric comedy (Sicilian, Megarian), as well as in Attic comic theatre. Sosibius considered this type of spectacle as old, and Plutarch testifies to its existence in the fifth century BCE.

Glycera, a hetaira, is presented as Menander’s mistress in sources of the Imperial age. Alciphron invented an exchange of letters between the couple, discussing the invitation of King Ptolemy, who wishes to lure Menander to Egypt. This love affair is a biographical fiction, probably developed in Hellenistic times. Glycera’s figure is based on homonymous female characters of Menander’s plays, as well as on a historical hetaira of the same name. The relationship between Diphilus and the hetaira Gnathaena (attested earlier in anecdotes by Lynceus and Machon) may also have served as a model.

Lynceus of Samos, a pupil of Theophrastus, produced plays of New Comedy in Athens, although the report that he competed against Menander is doubtful. His writings also include a treatise on Menander and a collection of anecdotes about figures of Athenian social life (hetairai, parasites etc.), sometimes involving famous comic poets of the time. These may rely on first-hand experience or information.

Machon, a poet of New Comedy, produced his plays in Ptolemaic Alexandria, probably in the context of the early Ptolemies’ efforts to promote their capital as a centre of comic art. His surviving titles and fragments suggest typical New Comedy plots, with misunderstandings, recognitions, and food themes, but also include uncommon elements (e.g. a cook fond of eating his own dishes). Machon also published the Chreiai, a collection of versified anecdotes about celebrated parasites, hetairai, and other figures of social life, many of whom are mentioned in Middle and New Comedy. His work displays coarse humour and caustic satire.

Maeson, a character of Megarian comedy, was said to have been created by a Megarian actor of the same name (a tradition of doubtful historicity). Maeson appeared as a cook, servant, sailor, and in other dramatic roles, being portrayed as ignorant, uncouth, and gluttonous. A slave mask of Attic New Comedy was also called Maeson. A proverb about ingratitude is attributed to “Maeson the Megarian”, though on obscure grounds.

Megara, a city between Athens and Corinth, was known for its local kind of farce (Megarian comedy). Megarians claimed to have first invented the genre of comedy around the early sixth century BCE, a doubtful assertion. Aristotle was familiar with comic performances at Megara in his time, but no dramatic festivals are recorded in later periods.

Megarian comedy, an improvised popular farce produced at Megara, was known to fifth-century Athenian audiences. There was rivalry between the comic traditions of Athens and Megara: poets of Old Comedy condemned Megarian jokes as vulgar, while the Megarians claimed to have first invented the genre of comedy. The Attic playwrights’ references, combined with later testimonia, reveal some of the motifs and characters of Megarian comic drama: obscene jests, slaves tossing nuts to the audience, the hungry Heracles cheated of his dinner, a cook and glutton named Maeson, possibly also the stealing of fruit and the drug-seller. The scene of the Megarian man visiting Dicaeopolis in Aristophanes’ Acharnians may parody material from Megarian performances.

Persia, the head of a large Eastern empire in Classical times, is presented in Greek comedy as a land of excessive wealth and luxury. Its typical comic traits include a fairytale abundance of gold and precious objects, massive consumption of food and drink, rich exotic clothing, pompous officials and courtiers, voluptuousness, and effeminacy. Old Comedy, in particular, proudly recalls the past Greek victories in the Persian Wars and considers contemporary Persia a great, dangerous, but alluring power.

Riddles, a favourite pastime in Attic symposia, became popular especially in Middle Comedy. They are propounded and solved on stage in numerous scenes, often set in a sympotic context. A particular group of them concern culinary items described by a comic cook in high-flown riddling language. Spectators enjoyed the dramatized sympotic game, presumably attempting to find the solution before the characters did. Riddles also functioned as a form of humour and were sometimes subjected to parody as a stock comic theme.

Susarion, named as the inventor of comedy in Hellenistic and later sources, is variously described as an Attic poet active in the deme of Icaria or as a Megarian. These variant traditions presumably stem from the rivalry between Athens and Megara concerning the origins of comedy. The single fragment attributed to Susarion is a later forgery. His historical identity, when not doubted, becomes the object of widely differing theories.

Thais, a brazen, profit-loving hetaira, was a central character in Menander’s play of that name and later became the emblematic type of the comic courtesan for Roman authors. In an epigram of Martial, the young Menander is presented as having a love affair with Thais. This is meant as a playful metaphor for the composition of the corresponding comedy; it does not imply the existence of a broader biographical tradition about Thais and Menander.

Timon, mentioned in Old Comedy as the emblematic misanthrope, was a proverbial figure well known to the audience. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata suggests that he became a man-hater because of the wickedness of his fellow-men, a theme later developed in Lucian’s dialogue Timon, which perhaps reworks comic material. The traditions about Timon may have influenced the portrayal of other theatrical misanthropes, such as Menander’s Knemon.

At all the stages of European history, adultery has been considered a serious offence that jeopardizes the basic cell of society – family. As society has evolved, significance and the role of the family within it changed, as well as the attitudes towards marriage and adultery. This article aims to demonstrate, by analysis of Horace’s and Juvenal’s satires, how the emancipation of Roman women altered the vision of the adultery in Roman
satire and how these changes have reflected on the language of this genre.
Key words: adultery, satire, emancipation of women, Horace, Juvenal

Los estudios recientes sobre género y fin de siglo se han centrado en la inseparabilidad entre la política cultural y la sexual en la Europa finisecular. 1Las preocupaciones en torno a cuestiones del género y la sexualidad, en las cuales se reflejaban las ansiedades colectivas de una sociedad en transición, estaban íntimamente ligadas al problema del control social.

En este estudio se abordan dos figuras claves de la literatura universal, Ana Ozores, la Regenta, y Jane Eyre. Esta aproximación se realiza desde un punto de vista feminista y comparado, pero sin olvidar las características esenciales de ambos personajes ni el contexto de la novela en el que se insertan. Aunque las dos heroínas pertenecen a tradiciones literarias muy distintas, se señalarán sus numerosas similitudes. Especialmente, nos detendremos en las relacionadas con el conflicto que ambas viven con la sociedad patriarcal de su época, y en el deseo que manifiestan de transgredir las normas impuestas desde esta. Las dificultades a afrontar, unidas a su propia marginalidad, las llevarán a la enfermedad y la locura, pero su destino final no podría ser más distinto. Trataremos de intuir las claves del éxito de una y del fracaso de la otra.

The account of the Lydian king Gyges' ascent to the throne offered in Nicolaus of Damascus' Universal History (1st C. BC) has been traced directly to the work of the fifth-century Lydian historian Xanthus. This study examines Nicolaus' clever manipulation of narrative motifs derived from the Bellerophon myth and the first speech of the 5th/4th-century Attic orator Lysias. The use of the latter, in particular, suggests that the relationship to Xanthus' account is far from straightforward and tells against the view of Nicolaus as a mere redactor.

Presented at BACLS Virtual Conference 2020, online during the COVID-19 pandemic

This conference paper examines how two American novels published following the 2007/8 global financial crisis, Jess Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets (2009) and Martha McPhee’s Dear Money (2010), narrate that crisis through representations of the household. The combination of neoliberal economic policy and a financial crash triggered by primary and secondary mortgage markets leads to new kinds of representations in these texts. The two novels are fundamentally about housing and domestic space: Poets is about the threat of foreclosure, and Dear Money is about the trading of mortgage debt. However, in these texts, housing and finance are both realized alongside and through adultery. As the breaking of the marital contract, adultery is, as Andrew Hoberek argues, a “symbolic stand-in” for the 2007/8 mortgage crisis because of its ability to function as that which translates the macro-financial crisis into a micro-domestic crisis. For both novels’ protagonists, adultery threatens their marriage and therefore the social construction of the household, which is held in conjunction with a global financial crisis that threatens material ownership of the physical house. As well as this, in both texts the respective affairs create further financial downturn at both the micro and macro levels. This paper argues, then, that adultery is more than just a symbol or metaphor in financial crisis fiction. It is simultaneously reflective and constitutive of financial anxiety and crisis: adultery is cast as the catalyst for domestic (and subsequently financial) breakup, but the conditions for adultery itself are created by financial (and subsequently domestic) downturn. Configuring a household as both a material object and as a social-economic object is rooted in concurrent and contingent financial and marital rupture.