LAT 251 - Roman Novel: The Golden Ass

“Your Life as a Donkey” might just as easily serve as title for this course. Ostensibly writing to titillate his readers, the Numidian (modern Algeria) Platonic philosopher Apuleius confounds them with his meandering tale of Lucius, a man transformed into an ass that endures unimaginable (yet gripping!) sufferings until his shocking religious conversion to the Egyptian goddess Isis. We will read the entire novel in English, but spend the majority of the course focusing on excerpts in Latin. As we familiarize ourselves with Apuleius’ playful, hypnotic prose style, we will inevitably confront what the philosopher’s novel seems to demand of us: the gulf between expectation and fulfillment, the illusory nature of form and perception, and how in fact we “donkeys” know what we know.

Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts towards the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.

Prerequisites & Notes
Prerequisite- LAT 201 or placement test. Students who have taken a LAT course beyond 201 should enroll in this course as LAT 351. 

Not offered in 2025-2026.