"The story follows Lucius, a young man of good birth, as he disports himself in the cities and along the roads of Thessaly. This is a wonderful tale abounding in lusty incident, curious adventure and bawdy wit." -- Google Books viewed January 11, 2021.

Cupid and Psyche Apuleius - Cupid and Psyche is a story from the Latin novel Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century AD by Apuleius. It concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche (Soul or Breath of Life) and Cupid (Desire), and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage.

Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - encountering a desperate gang of robbers and being forced to perform lewd 'human' tricks on stage - until the Goddess Isis finally breaks the spell and Lucius is initiated into her cult. Apuleius' enchanting story has inspired generations of writers such as Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Keats with its dazzling combination of allegory, satire, bawdiness and sheer exuberance, and remains the most continuously and accessibly amusing book to have survived from Classical antiquity.

Trans/formations is a new addition to "SCM's Controversies in Contextual Theology" series. Like anything coming from Marcella Althaus-Reid and Lisa Isherwood, it is controversial and challenging as well as highly original. The book will: make visible a range of trans lived experience [transgendered and transsexual], offer theological reflection on these experiences, create challenging theology from this experiential base, and provide a resource for churches and theology students not to date available. It includes an excellent range of contributors, including Elizabeth Stuart and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. This is a valuable addition to reading lists of courses on religion, gender and the body.

The "genre" of the modern Gnostic novel encompasses an especially eclectic range of works. With this book-a fantasy by turns dark, absurd, comic, frantic, and lyrical-David Bentley Hart joins a company that includes figures as diverse as Georges Bernanos, Anatole France, David Lindsay, Philip K. Dick, Patrick White, Umberto Eco, William Gaddis, Harold Bloom, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, John Crowley, and Philip Pullman. In Kenogaia, a clockwork universe, an oppressive global society of ever-present surveillance, and the coming of age of its protagonist, Michael Ambrosius, are all disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious child from beyond the stars. Modeled on the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, Hart's tale is an imaginative exploration of the relation between good and evil, the difference between reality and illusion, the struggle to live life in truth, and the nature of spiritual existence. In these pages, Hart emerges as a master of mythopoesis even while spinning out a rollicking full-on adventure about friendship, loyalty, and the rescue of true goodness from a universe darkened by delusion.

The brief word-histories in this book are meant to provide background on some words that everyone learns when they study Latin, as well as some rarer terms that have interesting stories to tell about Roman culture. This book lists a new word or phrase that came into American English every year from 1975 to 1998, with a selection of early additions from 1497 to 1750, and discusses the history behind the adoption of each. Teachers and students of Latin can benefit from the slightly more formal, but still anecdotal, approach taken here to some key words in the Latin lexicon.

Concepts of heaven and hell are among the oldest, most widespread religious beliefs in history. In Western literature, they are frequently embedded in stories of underworld explorations and celestial journeys--stories examining the nature of the universe, life on earth and the existence of the gods. The author analyzes tales of wonder in both ancient and medieval European literature. Other-worldly narratives appeared in literary contexts in the ancient world, including mythology, poetry and philosophical writings. In medieval times, they remained a popular form of literary expression. These stories are primarily religious in nature, describing fantastic worlds filled with miracles and supernatural beings.