After Ovid

Ovid's Metamorphoses is one of the great works in classical literature, and a primary source for our knowledge of much of classic mythology, in which the relentless theme of transformation stands as a primary metaphor for the often cataclysmic dynamics of life itself. For this book, British poets Michael Hofmann and James Lasdun have invited more than forty leading English-language poets to create their own idiomatic contemporary versions of some of the most famous and notorious myths from the Metamorphoses. Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe, Proserpina, Marsyas, Medea, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice--these and many other immortal tales are given fresh and startling life in exciting new versions. The contributors--among them Fleur Adcock, Amy Clampitt, Jorie Graham, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Lawrence Joseph, Kenneth Koch, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Les Murray, Robert Pinsky, Frederick Seidel, Charles Simic, and C. K. Williams--constitute an impressive roster of today's major poets. After Ovid is a powerful re-envisioning of a fundamental work of literature as well as a remarkable affirmation of the current state of poetry in English.

The 2000th anniversary of Ovid?s death, in 2017-2018, led to an upsurge in conferences and publications dedicated to the author?s work and afterlife. One of these is the present volume, resulting from the conference 'Dopo Ovidio. Aspetti della ricezione ovidiana fra letteratura e iconografia', which was held on 7-8 May 2019 at the Department of Human Sciences (DSU) of the University of L?Aquila, and which looked at various aspects of Ovid?s fortune, from a diachronic and interdisciplinary perspective. The contributions cover a period of about fourteen centuries, from late antiquity until the end of the eighteenth century, and range from late Latin to medieval literature, from humanistic production to modern English and Italian literature, and from linguistics to the figurative arts. All these studies contribute to a collective appraisal of the multifarious impact of Ovid?s works, and especially of the 'Metamorphoses', the latter?s treatment of myth having been a starting point for integrations, developments, (re)interpretations and representations, in isolation or included in an iconographic program.

Two Thousand Years of Solitude: Exile After Ovid is an interdisciplinary study of the impact of Ovid's banishment upon later Western literature and explores the responses to Ovid's portrait of his life in exile. Two millennia after his banishment, Ovid is still a potent symbol of the punished author, suffering in exile.

A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid presents more than 30original essays written by leading scholars revealing the richdiversity of critical engagement with Ovid’s poetry thatspans the Western tradition from antiquity to the presentday. Offers innovative perspectives on Ovid’s poetry and itsreception from antiquity to the present day Features contributions from more than 30 leading scholars inthe Humanities. Introduces familiar and unfamiliar figures in the history ofOvidian reception. Demonstrates the enduring and transformative power ofOvid’s poetry into modern times.

Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature (Series Editors: Kathleen Coleman and Richard Rutherford) introduces individual works of Greek and Latin literature to readers who are approaching them for the first time. Each volume sets the work in its literary and historical context, and aims to offer a balanced and engaging assessment of its content, artistry, and purpose. A brief survey of the influence of the work upon subsequent generations is included to demonstrate its enduring relevance and power. All quotations from the original are translated into English. Ovid's Metamorphoses have been seen as both the culmination of and a revolution in the classical epic tradition, transferring narrative interest from war to love and fantasy. This introduction considers how Ovid found and shaped his narrative from the creation of the world to his own sophisticated times, illustrating the cruelty of jealous gods, the pathos of human love, and the imaginative fantasy of flight, monsters, magic, and illusion. Elaine Fantham introduces the reader not only to this marvelous and complex narrative poem, but to the Greek and Roman traditions behind Ovid's tales of transformation and a selection of the images and texts that it inspired.

The epic Metamorphoses, Ovid’s most renowned work, has regained its stature among the masterpieces of great poets such as Vergil, Horace, and Tibullus. Yet its irreverent tone and bold defiance of generic boundaries set the Metamorphoses apart from its contemporaries. Ovid before Exile provides a compelling new reading of the epic, examining the text in light of circumstances surrounding the final years of Augustus’ reign, a time when a culture of poets and patrons was in sharp decline, discouraging and even endangering artistic freedom of expression. Patricia J. Johnson demonstrates how the production of art—specifically poetry—changed dramatically during the reign of Augustus. By Ovid’s final decade in Rome, the atmosphere for artistic work had transformed, leading to a drop in poetic production of quality. Johnson shows how Ovid, in the episodes of artistic creation that anchor his Metamorphoses, responded to his audience and commented on artistic circumstances in Rome.

This publication provides a detailed commentary on the first book of Ovid's calendar poem Fasti and tackles head-on the problems and dynamics of the post-exilic reworking of the text. It is the most extensive analysis yet on any single book of the poem.