Chapter 12. Chloe as learning subject in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe

Abstract

Setting the erotic education of Daphnis and Chloe in the context of contemporary discourses of paideia, this essay argues that it is Chloe who represents the ideal learning subject. While Daphnis is associated with the language of teaching and training (διδάσκω, παιδεύω), Chloe is associated with the language of learning and understanding (μανθάνω). When her learning process is depicted in the novel’s inset scenes of mythological story-telling, Chloe repeatedly rejects or eludes hierarchical and transactional frameworks of education, modeling a reflective self-awareness and intellectual agency that separates her from Daphnis and connects her instead with adult figures like the Hunter-Narrator and with the novel’s implied reader.