Origens gregas do género

Abstract

The very first consideration to be taken into account when we look at a set of texts commonly known as “ancient novels” is how to define this literary gender. The use of the term “novel” to name this type of work involves both a contradiction and a misconception: the contradiction lies in the fact that the term “novel” is anachronistic; the misconception consists in the conceptual amplitude and theoretical indefinite nature of the word in question. Once the modern tendency in literature points to a blurring of modal or generic boundaries, what is important to know is whether there is a corpus of texts that share common features and which can thus be grouped within the same gender. The study we carried out has made it clear that there is, in fact, a series of texts whose thematic and formal traits set them apart from the remaining literature produced in the Antiquity. On the other hand, there are other factors, namely aesthetic, cultural, historical and ideological ones, which also come into the making and definition of a literary gender. We have identified three such factors that make it possible for these texts to be included in a homogeneous category: a particular type of narrative structure, the verisimilitude of the story being told and the love theme. It therefore makes perfect sense to conclude that there is a set of works that clearly share enough common features so as to be included in a particular “literary gender” which is undoubtedly the precursor of the modern novel.