Metamorphoses - Softcover

Ovid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853267902 ISBN 13: 9781853267901

Publisher: Wordsworth Edition, 1998

Synopsis

Ovid's Metamorphoses, completed around AD8, shows the presence and prevalence of change in the world. Beginning with chaos and creation, Ovid embraces a vast array of mythological tales within his theme of transformation. Phaeton, Narcissus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Daedalus and Icarus are only a few of the most famous. Passing through these to the serio-comic retellings of the Trojan War, the travels of Aeneas, and the events of Roman history down to Ovid's own times, his readers find infinite variety in a work that is, by turns, funny, pathetic and violent - always unpredictable and always engrossing. John Dryden's translations are featured in this collaborative Metamorphoses, first issued in 1717, to which eighteen translators contributed under the editorship of Sir Samuel Garth. Composed in a poetic idiom well suited to the satiric and mock-heroic aspects of this work, this is the only translation that can match Ovid's wit and stylistic sophistication.

About this title

Book Description:

This volume presents the Latin text, with an Introduction and full commentary, of Book XIII of the Roman poet Ovid's long work Metamorphoses. It discusses in detail Ovid's treatment of his sources and sets out the ways in which he has adapted earlier literature as material for his novel enterprise. Guidance is offered on points of language and style, and the Introduction treats in general terms the themes of metamorphosis and the structure of the poem as a whole.

About the Author:

Publius Ovidius Naso, a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, Ovid was generally considered the greatest master of the elegiac couplet.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Edition
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1853267902
• ISBN 13: 9781853267901
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592