Review of Whitmarsh, Dirty Love

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Tim Whitmarsh, Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xviii, 201. ISBN 9780199742653. $45.00. Reviewed by David Konstan, New York University (dk87@nyu.edu).

Whitmarsh’s analyses of the hybridizing precursors to the novel, or more strictly to the exogamous subset of the novels, are wide-ranging, subtle and imaginative.

Also, on Joseph and Aseneth:

There is an interesting twist, however: Joseph is gorgeous and “all the women and daughters of the Egyptians used to suffer terribly on seeing Joseph, on account of his beauty” (7.3, quoted on p. 111). I would have wanted more on this unusual reversal of the object of the erotic gaze: in this text Joseph has been thoroughly “Helenized.”

For more on Joseph and Aseneth, see here and links. And for more on the Alexander Romance, see here, here, and here.

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