Chariton Critical Essay | Critical Essay by B. E. Perry

Critical Essay by B. E. Perry

SOURCE: Perry, B. E. “Chariton and His Romance from a Literary-Historical Point of View.” American Journal of Philology 51, no. 2 (April-June 1930): 93-134.

In the following essay, Perry discusses the impact of ancient writers on the work of Chariton and praises his style, plotting, characterization, and use of irony.

Owing partly to accident and partly to various misconceptions, Chariton's story of Chaereas and Kallirhoe has received less attention in the past than it deserves, both in respect to its comparative literary value and to its significance in the history of the genre. In the first place, the text was not published until 1750, at a time when Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius, and Longus had already become for moderns the standard and best known representatives of the Greek romance; and in the second place, previous to 1900, Chariton was erroneously assumed by most critics to be the latest of the extant...
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