| |
A handsome young man and a beautiful girl fall in love at first sight. Because they know their parents will not approve of their relationship, they run away together and stow away on a ship. On the journey, their ship wrecks, and they barely make it to the shore of a foreign country that is fighting a war. Instead of getting help from the locals, the girl is kidnapped by evil soldiers, and the young man is determined to rescue her. At one point, he is sure he has seen her killed by the evil soldiers. At another point, the girl is told that the young man has been murdered. With the help of some good-hearted acquaintances, the young man and the beautiful girl find each other again, travel home, and are married with the approval of their parents, who thought their children were lost forever.
Is this the plot of the newest action film? A Shakespearean play?
No, it's the highlights of a novel written during the Greco-Roman
period that was widely read in Egypt. During this time (330 B.C
to A.D. 395), Egypt was under Greco-Roman rule. So, the politics,
language, and culture of Greece, Rome, and the surrounding countries
made their way across the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt. This particular
romance story, Leukippe and Clitophon, was very popular in
Egypt, because the beautiful girl, Leukippe (lu-kip-ee),
and the handsome young man, Clitophon (kly-toe-faun), travel
all over Egypt during their adventures.
One of the themes that repeats itself in Greco-Roman stories is
"apparent death." As you can see from the plot above, at some point
in the story several characters think others have died. Other Greco-Roman
romances that contain this same theme are Chaereas and Callirhoe
(ki-ray-us and ka-leer-ho-ay) and Daphnis and Chloe.
In fact, one way you can identify the hero (or heroes) of a story
is to see whether or not they apparently die at some point in the
story. (The villains in the story usually think they have won at
this point because they are sure the hero is dead.) The satisfaction
of seeing someone overcome insurmountable odds and survive adds
to the excitement of the story.
This literary device of "apparent death" was used by William Shakespeare, and we still see it in modern action films like Pearl Harbor and Armageddon. What would a James Bond movie be without Mr. Bond narrowly escaping death at least twice? We have the writers of the Greco-Roman world to thank.
|
