IDS 101: The Most Important Novel

The Most Important Novel you have never heard of is the Ancient Greek romance novel Aithiopika (3rd cent. CE), by a certain Heliodorus from Syrian Emesa. The princess Chariklea, exposed at birth by the Ethiopian queen because she was ashamed her infant was born White, only learns of her identity as a young woman, which sets her on a perilous journey from Greece accompanied by her beautiful lover Theagenes to reclaim her patrimony. Not only can Aithiopika be considered the first “passing novel,” when it was translated into French in 1547 it inspired the invention of the modern European novel – a work of prose fiction. We trace its impact on Western literature through a series of firsts: Oroonoko: Or, the Royal Slave. A True History (1688) by Aphra Behn, one of the first English women novelists; Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), the first realistic novel; and Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self (1903) by Pauline Hopkins, editor of the first African American literary magazine. Along the way we ponder questions both literary and cultural about the relationship between the real world and the world of the novel. CONTENT ADVISORY: These texts describe sexualized violence.