Longus
Longus is a largely enigmatic figure in Greek literature, believed to have originated from one of the islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, possibly Lesbos. He is most renowned for his work "Daphnis and Chloë," which is considered one of the earliest novels and tells the romantic story of two shepherd-reared children who fall in love, navigate trials, and ultimately marry. Written likely in the third century, Longus's narrative features themes common to early novels, including romantic entanglements, supernatural elements, and a happy resolution. What sets Longus apart is his elegant prose, humor, and the psychological depth he provides to the characters, alongside vivid pastoral imagery that enhances the storytelling. His work is rich in literary allusions to earlier Greek poets, particularly Homer, and exhibits a unique blend of simplicity and complexity in its style. "Daphnis and Chloë" has had a lasting influence on later literature, notably impacting Elizabethan writers like Robert Greene and William Shakespeare. The first English translation of this work appeared in 1587, further solidifying its significance in the literary canon.
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Subject Terms
Longus
Greek prose poet
- Born: fl. second or third century
- Birthplace: Lesbos(?), Greece
Biography
As is the case with another masterpiece of Greek literature, the Iliad (c. 800 b.c.e.), not even the name of the author of Daphnis and Chloë is certain. All that is actually known about the writer whose name has come down through the centuries as Longus (LAHN-guhs), is that he was a native of one of the islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, possibly the island of Lesbos. He probably wrote during the third century, although some experts place him as late as the fifth. No other works by the same author are known to exist.
Daphnis and Chloë, the romantic tale of two children, reared by shepherds, who fall in love and after many trials discover their true identities and marry happily, is said to be among the first novels ever written. It shares with other early “novels” a romantic plot full of violent mishaps, supernatural occurrences, and a final happy reunion, a measured style of the type later termed euphuistic, and a reliance on such stock characters (taken from Menander) as the parasite and the nurse. Longus is unusual, however, in the grace of his prose style, his sense of humor, his use of a pastoral setting, and the fact that he puts psychological as well as physical barriers between his lovers. Longus’s fanciful tale, full of literary allusions to Homer and other Greek poets, is characterized above all by its magnificent descriptions of scenes of natural beauty. As the writer says in his prologue, his aim was to put into words a painting which told a love story.
The first translation of Daphnis and Chloë into English was by Angell Daye, in 1587, and the tale had a great influence on Elizabethan literature, as seen in the plots of Robert Greene’s Pandosto (1588) and William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1611). It is highly probable that John Lyly, whose hero Euphues gave his name to a rhetorical style of writing, was himself greatly influenced by the style of Longus.
Bibliography
Barber, G. Daphnis and Chloe: The Markets and Metamorphoses of an Unknown Bestseller. London: British Library, 1989.
Hardin, Richard F. Love in a Green Shade: Idyllic Romances Ancient to Modern. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. Discusses the influence of Longus and Daphnis and Chloë on subsequent romance literature. Bibliography and index.
McCulloh, William E. Longus. New York: Twayne, 1970. The best place for the general reader to begin gathering additional information about Longus.
MacQueen, Bruce D. Myth, Rhetoric, and Fiction: A Reading of Longus’s “Daphnis and Chloë.” Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Examines the novel from a literary critical perspective; it also includes a valuable bibliography.
Reardon, B. P., ed. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Allows readers to consider Daphnis and Chloë alongside other novels of ancient Greece and Rome, including Chariton’s The Loves of Chaereas and Callirrhoë, Xenophon’s An Ephesian Tale, and Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Cleitophon.