Ramsey Emma Kathleen. A commentary on the 'Peri Hermeneias' ascribed to Apuleius of Madaura

Royal Holloway, University of London, 2017. — 246 p.This thesis takes the form of a line-by-line commentary on the Peri Hermeneias ascribed to Apuleius with an introduction and has two main aims: To provide more detailed analysis of the Latin terminology than has been carried out previously and to examine the textual issues in order to highlight the need for a new critical edition of the text. Neither the 1908 Teubner edition of the work, which has been used for previous scholarship, nor the more recent 1991 Teubner by Moreschini take into account the full manuscript evidence, which means that this scholarship has not been able to adequately explain some of the more opaque parts of the work. In my commentary, therefore, I suggest a number of textual variants with a view to correcting such points. The introduction is divided into eight sections; the first two sections provide (1) a review of the previous scholarship on this text and (2) brief details about its intellectual background. The introduction then focuses on topics which have not been given a satisfactory treatment in the available scholarship: (3) A review of scholarship regarding the manuscript tradition of the text. (4) The relevance of Alexander of Aphrodisias' commentaries in positing more plausible readings and a discussion of possible Greek sources for the text. (5) An analysis of the Latin terminology compared to its Greek counterpart and of the introduction of neologisms compared to those introduced in the authentically Apuleian texts is carried out with a view to contributing to the authenticity debate. (6) The language and method of exposition are then used to highlight the didactic purpose of the work, which has not been examined previously. (7) I present new arguments for both sides of the debate surrounding the authenticity of the work by considering the stylistic aspects as well as the content of the text. (8) The purpose of this commentary is described as providing detailed evidence for the conclusions drawn in each of these introductory sections before suggestions are made as to how work on this text may usefully proceed in the future.