Week 2 (Essay): Eros and Psyche Review

 (Eros+Psyche by dahlig; soure: deviantART)

            This week I read the story of Cupid and Psyche from The Golden Ass by Apulieus and translated by Tony Kline. I enjoyed the readings of this unit. The overview was very good in describing the story so that I knew the basic idea of the unit without blatantly giving away the plot. I am really glad I chose this story. There was enough drama where people did not think it was over-the-top. It is also not one of the more common Roman myths like Persephone, the Golden Apple, etc. At least, I had never heard of this story before within my four years of taking Latin.

For these types of readings, most people do not usually like the diction because it is different from how contemporary are written. The writing is so descriptive and flamboyant that many people end up getting confused, but I happen to enjoy it very much. Even for those that are not used to this style of writing, the notes and background information helped with understanding the story. One of the notes that could be improved would be in the Oracle of Apollo. It would have been nice to have more notes about the prophecy portion. Because it was a bit difficult to decipher, this was my least favorite story. Other than that, I liked all of the stories because the supplemented notes were sufficient for understanding what was happening.

As for the story itself, I also ended up enjoying it. There were a few slow parts and many repetitions, as with a lot of Greek/Roman mythologies, but the overall experience was good.  Like I said, the notes really helped readers understand the background material of the stories better. I liked how some topics were linked to other websites in case someone wanted to look more into the background material. I wished some notes were at the end of the story because they felt like a spoiler, but it was not a big deal.