Metaphor and emotion: Eros in the Greek novel

Abstract

The study of emotion is an interdisciplinary field. One key aspect of this field is the cultural variation of emotion. This thesis is a contribution to the above area by means of a specific analysis of the ancient Greek conception of the emotion ἔρως. The focus for this study is the Greek Novel, a collection of literary works emerging from the Greek speaking culture of the eastern Mediterranean during the Roman imperial period (1st to 4th cent C.E.). These novels are based upon the universal topics of love and sexual passion, while at the same time reflecting and reworking both the specific social and literary climate of the period and ancient Greek folk and philosophical models of psychology. My thesis argues that the role of conceptual metaphor in the understanding of ἔρως as an emotion has not yet been fully appreciated, and that an understanding of metaphor is essential for gauging which parts of the folk model of the emotion are culturally specific or universal, and how these sections interact.