The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, a Quest for the Soul through Laughter

The Metamorphoses of Apuleius is a picaresque, erotic-comic novel narrating the tribulations of the young Lucius, transformed into a donkey following errors of magic. This text is a celebration of laughter as it contains scenes and comic characters. So, based on the Platonic theories of the soul, Apuleius engages both his character and his reader in a dialectical process aimed at making his soul more virtuous, a sine qua non condition for his ontological metamorphosis.