Ovid (43 BC – AD 17)
Lifespan: BC (before christ) - AD
Related: Ars Amatoria (c. 1 B.C.) - Latin - Metamorphoses - mythology - romantic love - Rome
Biography
Publius Ovidus Naso (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC – Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) 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. His poetry, largely imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, had a decisive influence on European art and literature for centuries. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid [Aug 2005]
Metamorphoses (c. 2 - 8) - Ovid
Metamorphoses (c. 2 - 8) - Ovid
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The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world in terms according Greek and Roman points of view. It has remained one of the most popular works of mythology, being the work best known to medieval writers and thus having a great deal of influence on medieval poetry.
The recurring theme, as with nearly all of Ovid's work, is that of love -- personal love or love personified as Amor (Cupid). Indeed, the other Roman gods are repeatedly perplexed, humiliated, and made ridiculous by Amor, an otherwise relatively minor god of the pantheon who is the closest thing this mock-epic has to an epic hero. Apollo comes in for particular ridicule as Ovid shows how irrational love can confound the god of pure reason. While few individual stories are outright sacrilegious, the work as a whole inverts the accepted order, elevating humans and human passions while making the gods and their desires and conquests objects of low humor. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphoses_(poem) [Oct 2006]
See also: Pygmalion - metamorphoses - epic poetry
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