The Metamorphoses of Ovid

Ovid

ISBN 10: 0156001268 / ISBN 13: 9780156001267

Published by Harcourt Brace, 1995

About this Item

Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00036243565

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Metamorphoses of Ovid

Publisher: Harcourt Brace

Publication Date: 1995

Binding: Soft cover

Book Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis:

Through Mandelbaum’s poetic artistry, this gloriously entertaining achievement of literature-classical myths filtered through the worldly and far from reverent sensibility of the Roman poet Ovid-is revealed anew. “[An] extraordinary translation...brilliant” (Booklist). With an Introduction by the Translator.

Review:

Publius Ovidius Naso, whom we know as Ovid, was already established as a writer when The Metamorphoses was published in A.D. 8, when he was 52 years old. It had taken him a decade to compose his great poem, during which time he published little, but the Roman world was still abuzz with excitement over his richly erotic Art of Love. So, unfortunately, was the court of Augustus Caesar, and the emperor banished the poet to what is now Romania. Augustus may have taken exception to the poet's turn to the impolite realm of the body--or he may have objected to a rumored affair between Ovid and the emperor's nymphomaniacal daughter Julia, who figures so prominently in Robert Graves's Claudius novels. The poet who had declared Rome to be his only home could have found no worse punishment than exile, but no amount of pleading could sway Augustus, and Ovid died on the shores of the Black Sea a decade later. Full of veiled political and historical references, The Metamorphoses lived on to become a permanent fixture in the canon of European literature. In Allen Mandelbaum's hands, it lives on for a new generation.