Metamorphoses

Ovid's Metamorphosesis a weaving-together of classical myths, extending in time from the creation of the world to the death of Julius Caesar. This volume provides the Latin text of the first five books of the poem and the most detailed commentary available in English of these books.

Ovid is a poet to enjoy, declares William S. Anderson in his introduction to this textbook. And Anderson’s skillful introduction and enlightening textual commentary will indeed make it a joy to use. In these books Ovid begins to leave the conflict between men and the gods to concentrate on the relations among human beings. Subjects of the stories include Arachne and Niobe; Tereus, Procne, and Philomela; Medea and Jason; Orpheus and Eurydice; and many others, familiar and unfamiliar. For students of Latin-and teachers, too-they provide an interesting experience. In his introduction the editor discusses Ovid’s career, the reputation of the Metamorphoses during Ovid’s time and after, and the various manuscripts that exist or have been known to exist. He describes the general plan of the poem, its main theme, and the problem of its tone. Technical matters, such as style and meter, are also considered. In notes the editor summarizes the story being told before proceeding to the line-by-line textual comments.

Ovid's Metamorphoses is one of the most influential works of Western literature, inspiring artists and writers from Titian to Shakespeare to Salman Rushdie. These are some of the most famous Roman myths as you've never read them before—sensuous, dangerously witty, audacious—from the fall of Troy to birth of the minotaur, and many others that only appear in the Metamorphoses. Connected together by the immutable laws of change and metamorphosis, the myths tell the story of the world from its creation up to the transformation of Julius Caesar from man into god. In the ten-beat, unrhymed lines of this now-legendary and widely praised translation, Rolfe Humphries captures the spirit of Ovid's swift and conversational language, bringing the wit and sophistication of the Roman poet to modern readers. This special annotated edition includes new, comprehensive commentary and notes by Joseph D. Reed, Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Brown University.

We are all fascinated by the mystery of metamorphosis – of the caterpillar that transforms itself into a butterfly. Their bodies have almost nothing in common. They don’t share the same world: one crawls on the ground and the other flutters its wings in the air. And yet they are one and the same life. Emanuele Coccia argues that metamorphosis – the phenomenon that allows the same life to subsist in disparate bodies – is the relationship that binds all species together and unites the living with the non-living. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, plants, animals: they are all one and the same life. Each species, including the human species, is the metamorphosis of all those that preceded it – the same life, cobbling together a new body and a new form in order to exist differently. And there is no opposition between the living and the non-living: life is always the reincarnation of the non-living, a carnival of the telluric substance of a planet – the Earth – that continually draws new faces and new ways of being out of even the smallest particle of its disparate body. By highlighting what joins humans together with other forms of life, Coccia’s brilliant reflection on metamorphosis encourages us to abandon our view of the human species as static and independent and to recognize instead that we are part of a much larger and interconnected form of life.

Synthesizing a wealth of detailed observations, Joseph Solodow studies the structure of Ovid's poem Metamorphoses, the role of the narrator, Ovid's treatment of myth, and the relationship between Ovid's and Virgil's presentations of Aeneas. He argues that for Ovid metamorphosis is an act of clarification, a form of artistic creation, and that the metamorphosed creatures in his poem are comparable to works of art. These figures ultimately aid us in perceiving and understanding the world.

"It is the single most important work of poetry in ancient history" - M. L. Andres, author of 'A Simple but Effective Strategy for Success' & founder of The Block Bard. Ovid's 15-book epic, written in exquisite Latin hexameter, is a rollercoaster of a read. Beginning with the creation of the world, and ending with Rome in his own lifetime, the Metamorphoses drags the reader through time and space, from beginnings to endings, from life to death, from moments of delicious joy to episodes of depravity and abjection.The madness and chaos of some 250 stories, spanning around 700 lines of poetry per book, are woven together by the theme of metamorphosis or transformation. The artistic dexterity involved in pulling off this literary feat is testimony to Ovid's skill and ambition as a poet. This accomplishment also goes a long way in explaining the rightful place the Metamorphoses holds within the canon of classical literature, placed as it is beside other great epics of Mediterranean antiquity such as the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid.