Bibliograph

Ovid's Metamorphoses and the traditions of Augustan poetry, Peter E. Knox

Type

Label

Ovid's Metamorphoses and the traditions of Augustan poetry, Peter E. Knox

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Ovid's Metamorphoses and the traditions of Augustan poetry

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Peter E. Knox

Series statement

Supplementary volume, no. 11

Summary

Having established his reputation as an elegist, Ovid turned to the composition of hexameter narrative. Although the Metamorphoses has often been treated as an appendix to the history of Augustan poetry, the principal lines of stylistic and thematic development continue in Ovid's work. Drawing upon the structure and content of Vergil's Sixth Eclogue, the Metamorphoses is an intricate and allusive poem that combines elements from the entire range of Roman verse composed in the Alexandrian manner. Professor Knox focuses in particular upon the contributions of elegy and epyllion, examining the manner in which Ovid exploits the diction of these genres in order to distinguish his poem from traditional epic verse. The study concludes with an investigation of the aetiological stories of the final book and the sustained evocation of Callimachus' Aetia at its close

Target audience

adult

Classification