Description
Book SynopsisOvid has long been celebrated for the versatility of his poetic imagination, the diversity of his generic experimentation throughout his long career, and his intimate engagement with the Greco-Roman literary tradition that precedes him; but what of his engagement with the philosophical tradition? Ovid''s close familiarity with philosophical ideas and with specific philosophical texts has long been recognized, perhaps most prominently in the Pythagorean, Platonic, Empedoclean, and Lucretian shades that have been seen to color his Metamorphoses. This philosophical component has often been perceived as a feature implicated in, and subordinate to, Ovid''s larger literary agenda, both pre- and post-exilic; and because of the controlling influence conceded to that literary impulse, readings of the philosophical dimension have often focused on the perceived distortion, ironizing, or parodying of the philosophical sources and ideas on which Ovid draws, as if his literary orientation inevitably
Trade ReviewThe full import of the book assumes familiarity with Ovid's works and Greco-Roman philosophy, but it is clearly written and will be accessible to advanced undergraduates. * B. E. Brandt, CHOICE *
This volume will do a lot to advance the idea that there is much more to Ovid than his lascivia. More broadly, it will help to reframe in very positive ways how we understand the relationship between philosophy and Latin poetry. * Joseph Farrell, University of Pennsylvania *
This excellent book mightily exceeds the expectations of a collaborative volume. The multi-author collection not only takes stock of philosophical themes and intertexts in Ovid's oeuvre but also opens up fresh perspectives grounded in the proposition (really developed here for the first time) that Ovid is seriously engaged with Greco-Roman philosophy. A groundbreaking volume that charts totally new paths towards more fully understanding an underappreciated dimension of Ovid's poetry. * John F. Miller, University of Virginia *
Philosophy in Ovid, Ovid as Philosopher successfully demonstrates that readers can find a great deal more engagement with philosophy in the works of an author who has usually been written off as excessively ludic and rhetorically flashy, and I take this as a positive sign for future directions in Ovidian scholarship... Offer Ovidian scholarship (and Latin literary studies more broadly) a potential pathway out of the inescapable labyrinth of hunting for intertexts as mere Hellenistic games. * Jeffrey P. Ulrich, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey., Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
Table of ContentsPreface Contributors Introduction Katharina Volk and Gareth D. Williams Part I: Ovid's sapientia 1. Ouidius sapiens: The Wise Man in Ovid's Work Francesca Romana Berno Part II: The Erotic Corpus 2. Elegy, Tragedy, and the Choice of Ovid (Amores 3.1) Laurel Fulkerson 3. Ovid's Ars amatoria and the Epicurean Hedonic Calculus Roy Gibson 4. Criticizing Love's Critic: Epicurean parrhesia as an Instructional Mode in Ovidian Love Elegy Erin M. Hanses 5. Ovid's imago mundi muliebris and the Makeup of the World in Ars amatoria 3.101-290 Del A. Maticic 6. Ovid's Art of Life Katharina Volk Part III: Metamorphoses 7. Keep Up the Good Work: (Don't) Do it like Ovid (Sen. QNat. 3.27-30) Myrto Garani 8. Venus discors: The Empedocleo-Lucretian Background of Venus and Calliope's Song in Metamorphoses 5 Charles Ham 9. Labor and pestis in Ovid's Metamorphoses Alison Keith 10. Cosmic Artistry in Ovid and Plato Peter Kelly 11. Some Say the World Will End in Fire: Philosophizing the Memnonides in Ovid's Metamorphoses Darcy A. Krasne Part IV: The Exilic Corpus 12. Ovid against the Elements: Natural Philosophy, Paradoxography, and Ethnography in the Exile Poetry K. Sara Myers 13. Akrasia and Agency in Ovid's Tristia Donncha O'Rourke 14. Intimations of Mortality: Ovid and the End(s) of the World Alessandro Schiesaro 15. The End(s) of Reason in Tomis: Philosophical Traces, Erasures, and Error in Ovid's Exilic Poetry Gareth D. Williams Part V: After Ovid 16. Philosophizing and Theologizing Reincarnations of Ovid: Lucan to Alexander Pope Philip Hardie Works Cited Passages Cited Index
