I'm sure people have quoted this from class on April 16th, but I like it so much I have to blog it too. On the 16th we were talking about The Golden Ass (or rather the first Mr. Ed) and that led Sexson to say, to the class, "You are all asses." Sexson is referring to the fact that we all need to be transformed. I don't know how we are to be transformed. Transformed by the class, by classical literature, by life? I suppose we are transformed by all of these things and more. I agree with Sexson, we are all asses, and that's with the understanding that ass doesn't mean idiot, but maybe it means naive or learning. While we learn we might make "asses" of ourselves.....but not really. Anyway, the point is, I may never hear a professor call his/her students asses ever again, so that was a special moment!
So, I read The Golden Ass and I loved it. Some of the situations were hilarious, like when Lucius, in ass form eats all the really nice food from the bakers table and baker guy gets really excited about it and trains him to do "tricks." Then I got grossed out when Lucius, still in donkey form has sex with a rich noblewoman.
I also wanted to point out that in one of my earlier blogs I talked about the Centaurs and the Lapiths, and so to my pleasant suprise they are talked about in The Golden Ass as well. It's a small blip, comparing when the bandits stole the bride from the wedding, to the wedding of Hippodamia and Pirithous of which was ruined by the Centaurs and Lapiths. It was nice to know the story behind the reference.
Another example of sporagmos is in The Golden Ass. The two groups of bandits are comparing stories and the second group is telling their unfortunate tale on page 90. "It was shocking to see poor Thrasyleon cornered by dozens of maddened dogs, who fastened their teeth into various parts of his body and began pulling him to pieces." Classic example of sporagmos.
Also, when Lucius and the girl that was captured with the bandits are escaping the girl is talking to Lucius the ass and wondering if he was a god or human in animal form. That was pretty ironic.
In class Sexson was talking about the morals in the Metamorphoses and his reductionistic conclusion was #1 Shit happens and #2 Things change which can be the morals for The Golden Ass as well. Then later on in class Sexson put out there that the moral of the story is the story.
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"Shit happens and things change" directly correlates to everyones lives. You take the ups with the downs, sometimes even the all-arounds, the roller coasters that make our lives engaging. Anyone can live. But without conflict, what would our lives be worth? Without personal growth, could we ever be enlightened, or, can enlightenment ever occur to begin with? If you can write a book about anything you can imagine, then someone out there will eventually enact those things. It is human nature. We are all asses, but we need to be. We need to see the transformation to understand why the "change" is that much important. Without the "shit", our lives would be boring. Who would we be? Donkeys maybe, I dunno.
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