"The manuscripts of three Latin authors were copied and preserved for use in Benedictine abbey scriptoria - Terence, Apuleius, and Augustine. The works of the first two, both from Roman Africa, were well known to a third and later Roman, also African, also to have great influence - Augustine of Hippo. Threads like this cross and cross again in this collection of essays devoted to the upsetting of society, of Chaos and Order - grand themes of antiquity and its heir, the Middle Ages - so epitomized by Dante in his Commedia, so full of tales within tales, of Psyches and Cupids, of truths and lies and their metamorphoses. The overriding influence of Apuleius may be traced from Boccacio to Chaucer. From Poststructuralism through such formalist criticism as that of Jakobson and Bakhtin, the essays lead us into the uses of formal Latin and derisive folk vernacular. This book provides a rich opportunity to laugh learnedly at ourselves, and laughingly learn from the world's literature."--Jacket.