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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 131
will, she should add a dimension to her interpretation by explaining, for example, how, in an account of a fire in a residential block of flats, which should be traumatic, the highlights can be a parody of Virgils halosis Troiae being played out on the third floor; on the roof, the gentle doves laying their eggs on the tiles; and, on the top floor, some ignorant Oscan-speaking mice nibbling the letters of the Greek alphabet from a divine poem.
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N I C O L I N I ( L . ) Ad (L)usum lectoris: etimologia e giochi di parole in
Apuleio. (Testi e Manuali per LInsegnamento Universitario del Latino 117.) Pp. 220. Bologna: Ptron Editore, 2011. Paper, E18. ISBN: 978-88-555-3108-5.
doi:10.1017/S0009840X12002697
N. argues that Apuleius is very much aware of the etymologies of the words he uses and accordingly utilises puns, often neologisms, in order to create etymological jokes in his novel. Consequently, she unearths many hitherto undiscussed puns and word games in the Metamorphoses and puts them alongside the ones already noted, offering the first systematic overview of Apuleius etymological jokes and puns, thus adding to the ever increasing discussion of Apuleius variety of lexis and style. She deliberately excludes non-etymological puns like paronomasia or assonance, for example Met. 9.14 pervicax . . . pertinax, though the distinction from para-etymological puns, for example Met. 6.19 atra atria, can be fluid.
She concentrates almost entirely on the novel (though Apologia and Florida appear, too), but her thesis would have been strengthened or at least tested if...