Psyche2.0010_Bouguereau

OGCMA s.v. "Psyche"
Apuleius Met. 4.28-6.24

William Adolphe Bouguereau, "Le Ravissement de Psyche", or "The Abduction of Psyche " 1895, private collection.

Oil painting of Cupid embracing Psyche, floating amidst clouds above a mountainous landscape

The story of Cupid and Psyche was interpreted allegorically in antiquity, nicely showing the soul's (the psyche's) yearning for eternal union and the opportunity offered by Eros(desire) to obtain that. Perhaps Plato's Phaedrus first articulated that yearning of the soul for lasting fulfillment in its mortal sojourn. From the Hellenistic period, artists often depict Eros with a lovely girl, and this may be the model for Apuleius' strikingly original mythologization in his novel-like narrative Golden Ass (aka, Metamorphosis, datable to ca. AD 175).

This slide informed by H.Nifong W19

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University and other contexts.
This resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.