Philander, The Golden Calf, 1749

The Metamorphoses as a whole was often seen to be imaginative and deliberately absurd. The title of this novel, Vitulus aureus, the Golden Calf, alludes to Apuleius’ Golden Ass, and the author’s name is a pseudonym. Philander claims to write a supplement to Apuleius’ novel and to make the inner workings of the mind visible to the naked eye, and open to inspection and comprehension. The story is somewhat bizarre. The narrator claims to have inspected the inside of the skulls of men killed in a tavern brawl, because he wanted to find out whether their acquisitiveness had any influence on the physical state of their brains. Their brains, it appears, had turned golden in reflection of their greed for gold. Apuleius’ novel does not only inspire the title, but also its first person narrative and incredible content. Apuleius’ novel, told in the first person, describes the transformation of a young man into a donkey, who hears stories of witchcraft where women kill their victims by tearing their heart out, replace it with a sponge and revive their victims temporarily, again with witchcraft. Both novels reveal human folly in humorous ways.

At the same time, the title Vitulus aureus, the Golden Calf, recalls the book of the same name by the Swiss alchemist Johann Friedrich Schweitzer (also known as Helvetius, 1630-1709), in which he describes how he himself had transformed lead into gold. As we know, this, too, is fiction.

Copyright University of Leeds