On Psyche and Psychology: A Reflection

The story of Cupid & Psyche in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses has long been valued for its literary qualities and philosophical implications. This study sets the story in the slave-owning culture to which it originally belonged. It pays special attention to the portrayal of Psyche as a runaway slave, and examines this construct through reference to the extensive body of Roman law that governed the treatment of fugitive slaves in real life. To support the story’s documentary potential, a comparison is drawn with a modern classic story of escape from servitude, Toni Morrison’s Beloved.