Walter Charleton’s The Ephesian Matron / Matrona Ephesia
Contextual studies, bilingual edition and commentary
Nina Tomaszewski
Retold by Walter Charleton (1620-1707) in The Ephesian Matron, the story of the widow of Ephesus –
a well-travelled lady by that time – became the starting point for digressions on the subject of love.
In an intriguing mix of fiction and philosophy, Charleton used the ancient story to comment on a
contemporary social phenomenon (the fashionable ideal of Platonic love) and contributed to the
seventeenth-century debate about the passions.
This book attempts to shed light on the at times
ambiguous text by studying its various (philosophical, literary, historical and philological)
contexts. Particularly the Latin translation (Matrona Ephesia, 1665) is analysed as a so-far
entirely neglected context that may e.g. offer insights into the reception of the story but
that is also philologically interesting in its own right.
Additionally, this book offers the first bilingual
edition of Charleton’s The Ephesian Matron and its Latin translation Matrona Ephesia, as well
as the first comprehensive commentary.
ISBN 978-3-86821-748-3, 643 S., kt., Euro 65,- 2018