Apuleius – Kuzmin – Bakhtin: Metamorphoses of plot, character, destiny

The paper is devoted to the novel «Metamorphoses» by Apuleius. The novel was the first attempt at depicting the radical change of the human soul in the European literatures. The ideological content of the novel is considered in the context of the cultural traditions of his times and in the readers’ perception of the subsequent centuries. Special attention is paid to M.M. Bakhtin’s views on the place of this work in the evolution of the European novel.