Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Humanities and Cultural Studies

Major Professor

Brendan Cook, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Scott Ferguson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

William Cummings, Ph.D.

Keywords

Confessions, curiositas, looking, Lucius, soul, tradition

Abstract

Ancient discourse about the beneficial yet predominantly dangerous role of curiosity inattaining knowledge was prevalent in the Roman Empire around the 2nd century C.E. when the North African author, Apuleius, composed his Latin novel, the Golden Ass. Although there is no shortage of modern scholarship that focuses on how Apuleius dramatizes obsessive intrigue by means of his protagonist, Lucius, contemporary publications seldom reorient the discussion to consider how unclear he is about the unstated source of curiosity, as I do in the following thesis. Approaching this topic through the context of ancient Neoplatonism, I argue Augustine of Hippo – a 4th century C.E. Christian Neoplatonist and Catholic bishop – supplies answers to Apuleius’ incomplete treatment of curiosity with his theory of pride as the archetypal sin. In doing so, the significance of this research is twofold. First, this paper employs a close reading of the Golden Ass, as well as Augustine’s Confessions, to maintain that Apuleius’ handling of curiosity implicitly poses questions about human nature that the subsequent writer articulates explicitly and develops even further. Secondly, recognizing to what extent Augustinian pride advances Apulean curiosity contributes directly to trends in existing scholarship that reject the term Neoplatonism and its reputation as a meaningful philosophical tradition. With this project, I affirm the legitimacy and relevance of the intellectual heritage by establishing the ways that Augustine continues the work begun by Apuleius in exploring the question of curiosity.

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