This book presents the first extended study of Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon, regarded as the most controversial of the ancient Greek novels. It presents fresh insights into the novel's narrative complexities and is written in a style accessible to non-specialists, with all Greek translated or paraphrased.

Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon, long regarded as the most controversial of the ancient Greek novels, is an outrageous tale of love and loss, of Phoenicians and philosophers, virginity tests and snuff murders. This book, the first published monograph on Achilles Tatius, is a study of Leucippe and Clitophon in its literary and visual contexts. It presents fresh insights into the work's narrative complexities and interpretative difficulties. It is particularly concerned with the novel's obsessions with the eye, with theories, descriptions, and metaphorics of the visual. It advances a reading that gives full play to the narrative's 'disgressions' - ekphrasis, sententia, blason, and spectacle - and discusses the politics of digressivity. This book is written to be accessible to non-specialists and all Greek is translated or paraphrased. It aims to contribute to a cultural history of viewing and to feminist literary criticism, as well as to the study of the ancient novel.