Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter presents a synthesis of the preceding chapters. It followed the heroines in their twin roles as lovers and writers, pursuing their darlings and their text. It showed their femininity ...
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This chapter presents a synthesis of the preceding chapters. It followed the heroines in their twin roles as lovers and writers, pursuing their darlings and their text. It showed their femininity slipping through their closed stasis and tearing the masculine fabric of Ovid's text, advertising a feminine rhetoric. However, their nuances gained substance only through a sympathetic reading, and this book's author's sensitivity to their efforts due to her explicit situation as a female reader. This book has worked on the feminine reading and writing of the Heroides with the aid of contemporary feminist thought.Less
This chapter presents a synthesis of the preceding chapters. It followed the heroines in their twin roles as lovers and writers, pursuing their darlings and their text. It showed their femininity slipping through their closed stasis and tearing the masculine fabric of Ovid's text, advertising a feminine rhetoric. However, their nuances gained substance only through a sympathetic reading, and this book's author's sensitivity to their efforts due to her explicit situation as a female reader. This book has worked on the feminine reading and writing of the Heroides with the aid of contemporary feminist thought.
Katharina Volk
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199245505
- eISBN:
- 9780191714986
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245505.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book examines the genre of ancient didactic poetry, focusing in particular on the Latin authors Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, and Manilius. Greek and Latin literature abounds in didactic poetry — ...
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This book examines the genre of ancient didactic poetry, focusing in particular on the Latin authors Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, and Manilius. Greek and Latin literature abounds in didactic poetry — poems that undertake to teach a field of knowledge or practical skill — but already, the ancients found it difficult to gain a theoretical understanding of this genre, and modern readers often perceive didactic texts as dry and overly technical. The book proposes a new theoretical approach to this elusive poetic type, identifying the following four defining criteria for didactic poetry: poetic intent, teacher-student constellation, poetic self-consciousness, and poetic simultaneity. In addition to an historical survey of the genre from Hesiod to the Roman Republic, the work contains individual chapters with detailed interpretations of Lucretius' De rerum natura, Vergil's Georgics, Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris, and Manilius' Astronomica. Throughout, special attention is paid to poetics; that is, the ways in which didactic texts explicitly present themselves as poetry and the ideas of poetry that they project. Though often regarded as ‘unpoetic’, didactic poems turn out to be especially rich in reflections on poetics and to comment self-consciously on their own status as both instructional and artistic texts.Less
This book examines the genre of ancient didactic poetry, focusing in particular on the Latin authors Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, and Manilius. Greek and Latin literature abounds in didactic poetry — poems that undertake to teach a field of knowledge or practical skill — but already, the ancients found it difficult to gain a theoretical understanding of this genre, and modern readers often perceive didactic texts as dry and overly technical. The book proposes a new theoretical approach to this elusive poetic type, identifying the following four defining criteria for didactic poetry: poetic intent, teacher-student constellation, poetic self-consciousness, and poetic simultaneity. In addition to an historical survey of the genre from Hesiod to the Roman Republic, the work contains individual chapters with detailed interpretations of Lucretius' De rerum natura, Vergil's Georgics, Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris, and Manilius' Astronomica. Throughout, special attention is paid to poetics; that is, the ways in which didactic texts explicitly present themselves as poetry and the ideas of poetry that they project. Though often regarded as ‘unpoetic’, didactic poems turn out to be especially rich in reflections on poetics and to comment self-consciously on their own status as both instructional and artistic texts.
Rebecca Armstrong
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199284030
- eISBN:
- 9780191712500
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199284030.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book studies in detail the representations of Pasiphae, Ariadne, and Phaedra in Latin poetry. It investigates both the literary history of the myths (the Greek roots, the interactions between ...
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This book studies in detail the representations of Pasiphae, Ariadne, and Phaedra in Latin poetry. It investigates both the literary history of the myths (the Greek roots, the interactions between Roman versions) and their cultural resonance. In addition to close readings of the major treatments of each woman's story (in Catullus, Virgil, Ovid, and Seneca), the book offers extended thematic explorations of the importance of memory, wildness, and morality in the myths. By extending the net to encompass three women (all from the same ill-fated family), the book gives a clear picture of the complexity and fascinating interconnectedness of myths and texts in Ancient Rome.Less
This book studies in detail the representations of Pasiphae, Ariadne, and Phaedra in Latin poetry. It investigates both the literary history of the myths (the Greek roots, the interactions between Roman versions) and their cultural resonance. In addition to close readings of the major treatments of each woman's story (in Catullus, Virgil, Ovid, and Seneca), the book offers extended thematic explorations of the importance of memory, wildness, and morality in the myths. By extending the net to encompass three women (all from the same ill-fated family), the book gives a clear picture of the complexity and fascinating interconnectedness of myths and texts in Ancient Rome.
Steven Green (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199277773
- eISBN:
- 9780191708138
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199277773.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This collection of essays on Ovid's corpus of erotodidactic poetry from an international contingent of Ovidian scholars finds its origins in a major conference held at the University of Manchester in ...
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This collection of essays on Ovid's corpus of erotodidactic poetry from an international contingent of Ovidian scholars finds its origins in a major conference held at the University of Manchester in 2002. The contributors between them offer a series of perspectives on the issues that have dominated scholarship on the poems in recent decades: questions of genre, intertextuality, narratology, and reception; the socio-historical Augustan context for the poems; and the nature of ‘love’ as it is constructed in the poems. Moreover, the introduction provides a comprehensive history of scholarship on the poems in the last fifty years, in which the current papers are situated. As the first collection of critical essays on Ovid's erotodidactic poetry to appear in English, one final aim of the present volume (and its original conference) is to bring together the important cultural or national traditions – German, Italian, Anglophone (British, Irish, and American) – of scholarship on the Ars and Remedia that have so far existed largely in isolation.Less
This collection of essays on Ovid's corpus of erotodidactic poetry from an international contingent of Ovidian scholars finds its origins in a major conference held at the University of Manchester in 2002. The contributors between them offer a series of perspectives on the issues that have dominated scholarship on the poems in recent decades: questions of genre, intertextuality, narratology, and reception; the socio-historical Augustan context for the poems; and the nature of ‘love’ as it is constructed in the poems. Moreover, the introduction provides a comprehensive history of scholarship on the poems in the last fifty years, in which the current papers are situated. As the first collection of critical essays on Ovid's erotodidactic poetry to appear in English, one final aim of the present volume (and its original conference) is to bring together the important cultural or national traditions – German, Italian, Anglophone (British, Irish, and American) – of scholarship on the Ars and Remedia that have so far existed largely in isolation.
S. J. Heyworth (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199218035
- eISBN:
- 9780191711534
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199218035.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book comprises a collection of chapters on Latin literature by a number of distinguished classicists, produced in memory of Don Fowler, who died in 1999 at the age of forty-six. The authors of ...
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This book comprises a collection of chapters on Latin literature by a number of distinguished classicists, produced in memory of Don Fowler, who died in 1999 at the age of forty-six. The authors of the chapters were all inspired by the desire to commemorate a beloved colleague and friend. The chapters, including that by Don Fowler himself, are much concerned with the reception of the classical world, extending into the realms of modern philosophy, art history, and cultural studies. There are fundamental studies of Horace’s style and Ovid’s exile. The book is unusual in the informality of the style of a number of pieces, and the openness with which the contributors have reminisced about Fowler and reflected on his early death.Less
This book comprises a collection of chapters on Latin literature by a number of distinguished classicists, produced in memory of Don Fowler, who died in 1999 at the age of forty-six. The authors of the chapters were all inspired by the desire to commemorate a beloved colleague and friend. The chapters, including that by Don Fowler himself, are much concerned with the reception of the classical world, extending into the realms of modern philosophy, art history, and cultural studies. There are fundamental studies of Horace’s style and Ovid’s exile. The book is unusual in the informality of the style of a number of pieces, and the openness with which the contributors have reminisced about Fowler and reflected on his early death.
KATHARINA VOLK
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199245505
- eISBN:
- 9780191714986
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245505.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The conclusion summarizes the results of the discussion in the preceding chapters.
The conclusion summarizes the results of the discussion in the preceding chapters.
David West
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199558681
- eISBN:
- 9780191720888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558681.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
‘There's a certain ... if anyone here will wish to know ... madam. Her name is Mrs Thirsty’. Comic scripts need a comic to perform them. Read silently they are dead. For this opening to Amores 1.8 ...
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‘There's a certain ... if anyone here will wish to know ... madam. Her name is Mrs Thirsty’. Comic scripts need a comic to perform them. Read silently they are dead. For this opening to Amores 1.8 the epexegete has to imagine a brilliant performer carrying it off: his timing, gesture, pitch and pace of voice, play of features (leer? or frown?), pregnant pause while the listeners realize they are being mocked. Ovid was a brilliant performer. It was a great sorrow to him in exile that if he were to recite his poems, nobody would understand him (Tristia 3.14.39-40). Composing a poem which you can't read to anyone is the same thing as performing rhythmic gestures in the dark (Pont. 4.2.33). This chapter attempts to imagine Ovid's recitation of Amores 1.1-6 to track the flight of the performing flea of Latin poetry: risisse Cupido dicitur.Less
‘There's a certain ... if anyone here will wish to know ... madam. Her name is Mrs Thirsty’. Comic scripts need a comic to perform them. Read silently they are dead. For this opening to Amores 1.8 the epexegete has to imagine a brilliant performer carrying it off: his timing, gesture, pitch and pace of voice, play of features (leer? or frown?), pregnant pause while the listeners realize they are being mocked. Ovid was a brilliant performer. It was a great sorrow to him in exile that if he were to recite his poems, nobody would understand him (Tristia 3.14.39-40). Composing a poem which you can't read to anyone is the same thing as performing rhythmic gestures in the dark (Pont. 4.2.33). This chapter attempts to imagine Ovid's recitation of Amores 1.1-6 to track the flight of the performing flea of Latin poetry: risisse Cupido dicitur.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual ...
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Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.Less
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.
G. O. Hutchinson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199279418
- eISBN:
- 9780191707322
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279418.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The study of Latin poetry-books, though seen as important, has suffered from limited engagement with Greek literature and papyri. This book, which combines unpublished and recently published pieces, ...
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The study of Latin poetry-books, though seen as important, has suffered from limited engagement with Greek literature and papyri. This book, which combines unpublished and recently published pieces, shows the importance of considering Greek and Latin works together, and of using Greek and Latin papyri in the study of poetic books. Important here are both new texts and evidence on the making and reading of books. The study of book-structure should embrace books which consist of short poems and books which make up part of long poems. The combination of poems within books, of books within a group or series, and of works within an œuvre, are all related. Book-structure should be seen as an aspect of sequential reading; changes and meanings, it emerges, are more significant than abstract symmetries. The book frames a series of discussions of major poems and collections from the 3rd and 1st centuries BC with an illustrated survey of poetry-books and reading and a more general discussion of structures involving books. The main poets discussed are Callimachus, Apollonius, Posidippus, Catullus, Horace, Ovid; there is a chapter on Latin didactic (Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Manilius). The discussions deal with fundamental issues in the works, and, in accordance with the approach advocated, bring in many critical and scholarly questions beside book-structure.Less
The study of Latin poetry-books, though seen as important, has suffered from limited engagement with Greek literature and papyri. This book, which combines unpublished and recently published pieces, shows the importance of considering Greek and Latin works together, and of using Greek and Latin papyri in the study of poetic books. Important here are both new texts and evidence on the making and reading of books. The study of book-structure should embrace books which consist of short poems and books which make up part of long poems. The combination of poems within books, of books within a group or series, and of works within an œuvre, are all related. Book-structure should be seen as an aspect of sequential reading; changes and meanings, it emerges, are more significant than abstract symmetries. The book frames a series of discussions of major poems and collections from the 3rd and 1st centuries BC with an illustrated survey of poetry-books and reading and a more general discussion of structures involving books. The main poets discussed are Callimachus, Apollonius, Posidippus, Catullus, Horace, Ovid; there is a chapter on Latin didactic (Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Manilius). The discussions deal with fundamental issues in the works, and, in accordance with the approach advocated, bring in many critical and scholarly questions beside book-structure.
Jennifer Ingleheart
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199232536
- eISBN:
- 9780191716003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232536.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The strong visual appeal of Ovid's Metamorphoses has long invited comparison with the pleasures of pantomime, most influentially in a publication by Galinsky. In the study of Ovid's references from ...
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The strong visual appeal of Ovid's Metamorphoses has long invited comparison with the pleasures of pantomime, most influentially in a publication by Galinsky. In the study of Ovid's references from exile to his poetry being ‘danced in the crowded theatres’, this chapter argues in detail that the obvious text for pantomime realisation is the Metamorphoses, rather than the Heroides (as has occasionally been claimed); through close attention to the detail in Ovid's poetry, it explores how the subject‐matter of that epic, with its compact vignettes of action, emotive rhetoric, exotic settings, and underlying emphasis on bodily transformation, must have been suggestive to pantomime dancers. Furthermore the chapter argues that there is plenty of action which could easily be represented through movement, gesture, and basic stage props. The discussion incorporates the crucial evidence of Jacob of Sarugh about pantomime performances of the myth of Apollo and Daphne. This chapter engages with the issue of pantomime libretti.Less
The strong visual appeal of Ovid's Metamorphoses has long invited comparison with the pleasures of pantomime, most influentially in a publication by Galinsky. In the study of Ovid's references from exile to his poetry being ‘danced in the crowded theatres’, this chapter argues in detail that the obvious text for pantomime realisation is the Metamorphoses, rather than the Heroides (as has occasionally been claimed); through close attention to the detail in Ovid's poetry, it explores how the subject‐matter of that epic, with its compact vignettes of action, emotive rhetoric, exotic settings, and underlying emphasis on bodily transformation, must have been suggestive to pantomime dancers. Furthermore the chapter argues that there is plenty of action which could easily be represented through movement, gesture, and basic stage props. The discussion incorporates the crucial evidence of Jacob of Sarugh about pantomime performances of the myth of Apollo and Daphne. This chapter engages with the issue of pantomime libretti.
Maggie Kilgour
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199589432
- eISBN:
- 9780191738500
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589432.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Beginning with a survey of other criticism in this area, the Introduction examines how Milton might have read Ovid and, more generally, exposes the range of meanings of ‘Ovid’ for Renaissance ...
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Beginning with a survey of other criticism in this area, the Introduction examines how Milton might have read Ovid and, more generally, exposes the range of meanings of ‘Ovid’ for Renaissance writers. While previous studies have emphasized the role of Ovid's Metamorphoses, it shows the importance of adding the exilic works and the Fasti to the ‘Renaissance Ovid’. It further considers the importance for Milton of Ovid's revision of Virgil, and of Ovid's central role in the development of Elizabethan literature.Less
Beginning with a survey of other criticism in this area, the Introduction examines how Milton might have read Ovid and, more generally, exposes the range of meanings of ‘Ovid’ for Renaissance writers. While previous studies have emphasized the role of Ovid's Metamorphoses, it shows the importance of adding the exilic works and the Fasti to the ‘Renaissance Ovid’. It further considers the importance for Milton of Ovid's revision of Virgil, and of Ovid's central role in the development of Elizabethan literature.
Yasmin Annabel Haskell
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262849
- eISBN:
- 9780191734588
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262849.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
In the ancient didactic poems, man is regularly presented as a product of cultivation or as an object of art. In the preceding chapters, Jesuit poets framed snapshots of ideal life in Virgilian ...
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In the ancient didactic poems, man is regularly presented as a product of cultivation or as an object of art. In the preceding chapters, Jesuit poets framed snapshots of ideal life in Virgilian terms. While there are no specific examples of classical verses and poems that dealt on the preservation of physical, mental and spiritual life, procreation, and child-rearing, Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris provided models for poets writing conventions of sexual and social relations. However, Ovid's immoral morality poems had to be handled with great care by the didactic poets of the Society of Jesuits. In Horace, whose satire of human foibles was more chaste, the Jesuits found a perfect model for the purpose of modern moralizing. In his Ars poetica, Jesuits began to cast life as art and art as life. This chapter explores the role of art as conceived by the Society of Jesuits, including its spiritual, social, and cultural poetry. It also discusses the paradox of the paucity of the Jesuit didactics devoted to the religious life. Although the Jesuits wrote a great quantity of Latin theological and devotional verses, they nevertheless succeeded because of their preservation of its secular interior. This approach was a perfect vehicle for winning the hearts of the Catholic public for disseminating Jesuit culture in a manner that was as inoffensive as it was invisible.Less
In the ancient didactic poems, man is regularly presented as a product of cultivation or as an object of art. In the preceding chapters, Jesuit poets framed snapshots of ideal life in Virgilian terms. While there are no specific examples of classical verses and poems that dealt on the preservation of physical, mental and spiritual life, procreation, and child-rearing, Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris provided models for poets writing conventions of sexual and social relations. However, Ovid's immoral morality poems had to be handled with great care by the didactic poets of the Society of Jesuits. In Horace, whose satire of human foibles was more chaste, the Jesuits found a perfect model for the purpose of modern moralizing. In his Ars poetica, Jesuits began to cast life as art and art as life. This chapter explores the role of art as conceived by the Society of Jesuits, including its spiritual, social, and cultural poetry. It also discusses the paradox of the paucity of the Jesuit didactics devoted to the religious life. Although the Jesuits wrote a great quantity of Latin theological and devotional verses, they nevertheless succeeded because of their preservation of its secular interior. This approach was a perfect vehicle for winning the hearts of the Catholic public for disseminating Jesuit culture in a manner that was as inoffensive as it was invisible.
Scott McGill
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195175646
- eISBN:
- 9780199789337
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195175646.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the (probably) earliest extant full-length Virgilian cento, Hosidius Geta's Medea, which takes the form of a tragedy. The aim is to explore how Geta accomplishes the feat of ...
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This chapter examines the (probably) earliest extant full-length Virgilian cento, Hosidius Geta's Medea, which takes the form of a tragedy. The aim is to explore how Geta accomplishes the feat of turning Virgil's verses into a tragic poem, and to approach that subject through the lens of genre, as well as of allusion. Focus lies upon interpreting the formal and thematic adaptation of Virgil to a drama on Medea, the use of Virgilian lines to allude to Ovidian and Senecan tragedy, and the intertextual relationship between the cento and Virgil's Aeneid 4, the story of Dido.Less
This chapter examines the (probably) earliest extant full-length Virgilian cento, Hosidius Geta's Medea, which takes the form of a tragedy. The aim is to explore how Geta accomplishes the feat of turning Virgil's verses into a tragic poem, and to approach that subject through the lens of genre, as well as of allusion. Focus lies upon interpreting the formal and thematic adaptation of Virgil to a drama on Medea, the use of Virgilian lines to allude to Ovidian and Senecan tragedy, and the intertextual relationship between the cento and Virgil's Aeneid 4, the story of Dido.
G. O. Hutchinson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199279418
- eISBN:
- 9780191707322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279418.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The structure of Amores 3 has been obscured by the whole series Amores 1-3, and the relation to Ovid's coming works. The structure rests on genre. The frame (poems 1 and 15) shows the poet-narrator ...
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The structure of Amores 3 has been obscured by the whole series Amores 1-3, and the relation to Ovid's coming works. The structure rests on genre. The frame (poems 1 and 15) shows the poet-narrator making and keeping a decisive resolution, to leave love-elegy for tragedy; the frame has connotations of tragedy, especially of Medea. The inset (poems 2-14) presents the indecisive and imperfective world of love-elegy, from which the narrator will escape. The inset teases the reader, however, on ending and on love. It makes excursions into other genres, but subverts more than it reinforces generic hierarchy. The book is politically subversive on adultery, and pointedly avoids Roman patriotism. Intertextuality with other ‘last’ books highlights the force of its structure.Less
The structure of Amores 3 has been obscured by the whole series Amores 1-3, and the relation to Ovid's coming works. The structure rests on genre. The frame (poems 1 and 15) shows the poet-narrator making and keeping a decisive resolution, to leave love-elegy for tragedy; the frame has connotations of tragedy, especially of Medea. The inset (poems 2-14) presents the indecisive and imperfective world of love-elegy, from which the narrator will escape. The inset teases the reader, however, on ending and on love. It makes excursions into other genres, but subverts more than it reinforces generic hierarchy. The book is politically subversive on adultery, and pointedly avoids Roman patriotism. Intertextuality with other ‘last’ books highlights the force of its structure.
G. O. Hutchinson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199279418
- eISBN:
- 9780191707322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279418.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This piece was the first to discuss the relation of a new papyrus to Ovid's Metamorphoses. The papyrus exhibits a sequence of unjoined elegiac accounts of metamorphoses; the individual accounts are ...
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This piece was the first to discuss the relation of a new papyrus to Ovid's Metamorphoses. The papyrus exhibits a sequence of unjoined elegiac accounts of metamorphoses; the individual accounts are shown to have been relatively short. The work is argued to be probably Hellenistic, and possibly by Parthenius. It throws light on the typology of Hellenistic poetry, much of which presents formally linked or formally unlinked sequences of parallel items. The work brings out for us, and possibly Ovid's first readers, the sweep and ambition of Ovid's design. Examination of the shared episodes displays Ovid's large interconnections, particularly within the poem's books, which are held to be significant structures. The role of length and brevity in the poem is illuminated by the papyrus. The appendix discusses the structure of Metamorphoses 9, built on the opposition of gender.Less
This piece was the first to discuss the relation of a new papyrus to Ovid's Metamorphoses. The papyrus exhibits a sequence of unjoined elegiac accounts of metamorphoses; the individual accounts are shown to have been relatively short. The work is argued to be probably Hellenistic, and possibly by Parthenius. It throws light on the typology of Hellenistic poetry, much of which presents formally linked or formally unlinked sequences of parallel items. The work brings out for us, and possibly Ovid's first readers, the sweep and ambition of Ovid's design. Examination of the shared episodes displays Ovid's large interconnections, particularly within the poem's books, which are held to be significant structures. The role of length and brevity in the poem is illuminated by the papyrus. The appendix discusses the structure of Metamorphoses 9, built on the opposition of gender.
G. O. Hutchinson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199279418
- eISBN:
- 9780191707322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279418.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Latin didactic poems commonly have several books, unlike Hellenistic didactic poems. The details of beginning and ending show a significant relation with the books of Hellenistic and Republican prose ...
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Latin didactic poems commonly have several books, unlike Hellenistic didactic poems. The details of beginning and ending show a significant relation with the books of Hellenistic and Republican prose treatises: Latin didactic does not simply transmute prose but evokes its intellectual structuring and division. Lucretius, Virgil's Georgics, Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, and Manilius are looked at in turn; there are implications for Ovid's design. The final myth of Georgics 4 is related to Cicero, De Re Publica; antithetical poetic books are related to antithetical books of Latin prose. Clarity and brevity are goals in Lucretius and in prose. Didactic prose as well as poetry is seen to have stylistic range and structural enterprise: dialogue in Varro illustrates.Less
Latin didactic poems commonly have several books, unlike Hellenistic didactic poems. The details of beginning and ending show a significant relation with the books of Hellenistic and Republican prose treatises: Latin didactic does not simply transmute prose but evokes its intellectual structuring and division. Lucretius, Virgil's Georgics, Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, and Manilius are looked at in turn; there are implications for Ovid's design. The final myth of Georgics 4 is related to Cicero, De Re Publica; antithetical poetic books are related to antithetical books of Latin prose. Clarity and brevity are goals in Lucretius and in prose. Didactic prose as well as poetry is seen to have stylistic range and structural enterprise: dialogue in Varro illustrates.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid's extraordinary story of Thebes' founding and bloody unravelling spans Books 2 and 3 of his epic poem, the Metamorphoses. His bizarre refractions of the well‐ordered community mirror Ovid's own ...
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Ovid's extraordinary story of Thebes' founding and bloody unravelling spans Books 2 and 3 of his epic poem, the Metamorphoses. His bizarre refractions of the well‐ordered community mirror Ovid's own Rome and the mythohistory of its origins, most particularly as framed in Vergil's Aeneid. The Aeneid has regularly been read as, demonstrating how and why Rome will stride forward into history and an ‘empire without end’. This book uses the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Lacan to argue that The Metamorphoses' strangely fantastical surface reflects what is already inherently perverse in that master‐narrative and discloses its internal contradictions. Ovid's Thebes features supernatural transformations, perverse fascinations, and violent end: Actaeon turned deer and the victim of his own hounds, Narcissus fatally captivated by his own image, Pentheus ripped apart by his mother and aunt. Ovid's reflections on how and why Thebes comes together—and how it comes unstuck—sceptically interrogate not only the existing (Roman) political order, claimed asiasting truth, but also the very possibility of organizing any polity into a harmonious, organically unified, lasting institution. Ovid thus poses doubts and questions crucial to the whole epic genre and its stress on collective identity as a function of a particular city‐state. His Metamorphoses probes the logical principles of the ordered human community—its cohesion, identity, and governance—revealing a hidden bond between the epic Doomed City (Troy, Thebes, Carthage) and the City of Manifest Destiny (Rome). In Ovid's ‘tale of two cities’ each logically defines and suppors the other. By asking, ‘What does it mean to be a polity? a citizen of a polity?’, Ovid poses questions centred upon the concept of identity. His Theban cycle thus asks even more radically, ‘What is identity? What shapes it? What changes it?’ To explicate Ovid's critique of epic nationalism and identity, a series of close readings of episodes from Books 3 and 4 draws upon psychoanalysis as a body of thought devoted to unfolding just how an unconscious constantly subverts notions of individual and collective selfhood. Psychoanalysis offers the conceptual basis for seeing the questions Ovid's Thebes inspires as facets of one problematic, revealing the singularity of Ovid's foundation‐tale as more rich and complex than previously appreciated.Less
Ovid's extraordinary story of Thebes' founding and bloody unravelling spans Books 2 and 3 of his epic poem, the Metamorphoses. His bizarre refractions of the well‐ordered community mirror Ovid's own Rome and the mythohistory of its origins, most particularly as framed in Vergil's Aeneid. The Aeneid has regularly been read as, demonstrating how and why Rome will stride forward into history and an ‘empire without end’. This book uses the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Lacan to argue that The Metamorphoses' strangely fantastical surface reflects what is already inherently perverse in that master‐narrative and discloses its internal contradictions. Ovid's Thebes features supernatural transformations, perverse fascinations, and violent end: Actaeon turned deer and the victim of his own hounds, Narcissus fatally captivated by his own image, Pentheus ripped apart by his mother and aunt. Ovid's reflections on how and why Thebes comes together—and how it comes unstuck—sceptically interrogate not only the existing (Roman) political order, claimed asiasting truth, but also the very possibility of organizing any polity into a harmonious, organically unified, lasting institution. Ovid thus poses doubts and questions crucial to the whole epic genre and its stress on collective identity as a function of a particular city‐state. His Metamorphoses probes the logical principles of the ordered human community—its cohesion, identity, and governance—revealing a hidden bond between the epic Doomed City (Troy, Thebes, Carthage) and the City of Manifest Destiny (Rome). In Ovid's ‘tale of two cities’ each logically defines and suppors the other. By asking, ‘What does it mean to be a polity? a citizen of a polity?’, Ovid poses questions centred upon the concept of identity. His Theban cycle thus asks even more radically, ‘What is identity? What shapes it? What changes it?’ To explicate Ovid's critique of epic nationalism and identity, a series of close readings of episodes from Books 3 and 4 draws upon psychoanalysis as a body of thought devoted to unfolding just how an unconscious constantly subverts notions of individual and collective selfhood. Psychoanalysis offers the conceptual basis for seeing the questions Ovid's Thebes inspires as facets of one problematic, revealing the singularity of Ovid's foundation‐tale as more rich and complex than previously appreciated.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter begins with a brief description of the recent increase in studies on Ovid's Heroides. It then discusses the main goal of the book, which is to characterize the feminine voice in the ...
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This chapter begins with a brief description of the recent increase in studies on Ovid's Heroides. It then discusses the main goal of the book, which is to characterize the feminine voice in the male-authored text. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.Less
This chapter begins with a brief description of the recent increase in studies on Ovid's Heroides. It then discusses the main goal of the book, which is to characterize the feminine voice in the male-authored text. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter elaborates the main interpretative strategies of the book's approach, arguing for its position within the wider context of the existing scholarship on the Heroides. The first section of ...
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This chapter elaborates the main interpretative strategies of the book's approach, arguing for its position within the wider context of the existing scholarship on the Heroides. The first section of draws a rough map of the main lines of enquiry that have been traced by critics so far. It briefly sketches the passage from the earlier derogatory comments on the heroines' portraits to the more recent interest in the subtle intertextual games played by Ovid in these deeply self-conscious narratives. The remainder of the chapter delineates the main preoccupations of the book' s approach in the light of the insight gained and impasses reached by the previous critical strands.Less
This chapter elaborates the main interpretative strategies of the book's approach, arguing for its position within the wider context of the existing scholarship on the Heroides. The first section of draws a rough map of the main lines of enquiry that have been traced by critics so far. It briefly sketches the passage from the earlier derogatory comments on the heroines' portraits to the more recent interest in the subtle intertextual games played by Ovid in these deeply self-conscious narratives. The remainder of the chapter delineates the main preoccupations of the book' s approach in the light of the insight gained and impasses reached by the previous critical strands.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the Heroides as short stories. It addresses aspects of brevity that involve more than Quellenforschung; brevity, as envisaged here, works as a catalyst that sets off a complex ...
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This chapter explores the Heroides as short stories. It addresses aspects of brevity that involve more than Quellenforschung; brevity, as envisaged here, works as a catalyst that sets off a complex war of supremacy within the collection. The heroines' short stories reveal the heroines' daring protest against the mega-narratives of the past, but their fervent rhetoric also encompasses their creator.Less
This chapter explores the Heroides as short stories. It addresses aspects of brevity that involve more than Quellenforschung; brevity, as envisaged here, works as a catalyst that sets off a complex war of supremacy within the collection. The heroines' short stories reveal the heroines' daring protest against the mega-narratives of the past, but their fervent rhetoric also encompasses their creator.
