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Daphnis and Chloe

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Is Daphnis and Chloe a Religious novel?
The story of Daphnis and Chloe
The story of Daphnis and Chloe pays homage to the God of love, Eros, Pan, and the Nypmhs with Dionysius and Hermes also present within the story, The role of the Gods in the novel is one of protection towards the essential love plot of Daphnis and Chloe, Whilst it is important to not take the Gods involvement away from the nature of love ( a dominant theme of the book)
The religious themes of the novel are already apparent in the title, without even opening the pages a reader with a knowledge of greek lore and myth will already relate the name Daphnis to its greek meaning of ‘Laurus nobilis’ or ‘Bay Laurel’ which stood as a significant symbol to Apollo, Daphnis himself in greek myth was citied to be the child of Hermes and a Nymph who struggled to contain himself and subsequently lost his eyesight at the wrath of a infatuated nymph. The similarities between the Mythological Daphnis and Longus’ Daphnis would suggest that Longus intended to relate his character to the legend. However in the novel Daphnis barely portrays any of the divine features which the legend holds, the word ‘par excellence’ is used in relation to the Legend, the word meaning ‘Better than all others of the same kind’ and it does not relate to Longus’ Daphnis . Furthermore the name Daphnis was a commonly used name in Greek literature especially in pastoral poetry which is hardly surprising seeing as the Legend is supposedly the inventor of the genre, Therefore it is not appropriate to say the character is solely based off the legend but the similarities they share help create a divine link between the two and the novel itself.

The Story of Daphnis and Chloe is predominately a story of love and romance, it is essentially the theme of the entire plot. Whilst Love is the theme of the story, Eros, the god of love, is

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