Abstract
This essay offers an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon of the erotic kiss in some ancient and Byzantine novels, namely Daphnis and Chloe, Leucippe and Clitophon, and Hysmine and Hysminias, where it features as an elaborate practice with underlying (if competing) theories regarding its utility. The essay demonstrates that in these novels, the kiss invokes the various ‘turns’—material, spatial, temporal, dermatological, vocal, and briefly, animal and vegetal—that have lately inflected the humanities. Additionally, the erotic kiss as subject, object, and act, pushes to the foreground the tensions embodied in period conceptions of real presence.
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Notes
All quotations from Eumathios Makrembolites’ Hysmine and Hysminias are from Elizabeth Jeffreys’ translation (2012). References are given within parentheses in the shortened form H&H.
All quotations from Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe are from Paul Turner’s translation (1989). References are given within parentheses in the shortened form D&C.
All quotations from Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon are from Tim Whitmarsh’s translation (2001). References are given within parentheses in the shortened form L&C.
All quotations from Constantine Manasses’ Aristandros and Kallithea are from Elizabeth Jeffreys’ translation (2012). References are given within parentheses in the shortened form A&K.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Helmut Puff for introducing me to the work of Alan Bray when I first decided to work on the topic of kisses. I am also indebted to the editors of postmedieval, editor-in-chief Shazia Jagot and managing editor Nicola Estrafallaces, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments.
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Chatterjee, P. The erotic kiss in ancient and Byzantine novels. Postmedieval (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-024-00343-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-024-00343-0