Half Heroes? Ambiguity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (original) (raw)
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Ovid's Metamorphoses: the text before and after
In this paper I suggest that at the beginning of the Metamorphoses through narrative techniques and the structure of the verses, in particular lines 1.10-14, the poet claims to be a fabricator mundi and that his text exists before the creation of the world, becoming the model for its formation. In the epilogue, the poet also declares his certainty that his work will be eternal; it will live, that is, sine fine as he states at Tristia 2.63-4. This reading of sine fine actually alludes to the prophecy of Jupiter in the first book of the Aeneid where the phrase meant the eternity of the Roman dominion. The perpetuum carmen, as the poet characterised the Metamorphoses at 1.4, refers not only to the time-span of the work through to the poet's own time but more importantly to the eternal character of his poetry. It is the poetic genius which cannot be trapped in a specific time frame. There is a consensus among Ovidian scholars that in writing the Metamorphoses Ovid had Virgil and his work firmly in mind. In striving for originality, he also had to emulate almost the entire Greek and Roman literary tradition. In his perpetuum carmen, therefore, he was confronted with the task of composing an all-inclusive work with regard to time, subject-matter and literary genre. The purpose of this paper is to show how Ovid exploited certain methods and techniques in order to imply, through the narrative, the omnipotence of the poetic genius through the creation of his text.
This paper focuses on a special type of ingenious expression used by Ovid in the Metamorphoses: the ambigua uerba. I examine under what circumstances Ovid attributes ambiguous replies referring to erotic desires and erotic feelings to certain characters. I argue that ambiguity is a linguistic device employed by Ovid to give more complexity to his psychological analysis of love and, more precisely, to explore, in a very subtle way, how difficult human relations are to grasp and understand, even for those concerned. All of these replies constitute an indirect hint of a hidden desire that cannot be clearly expressed or, what is even more interesting, perceived as such by the speaker himself. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid was a brilliant student of the rhetorician Arellius Fuscus (Contr. 2.2.8). He was taught to extend narrative scenarios from a briefly summarized plot and trained to find, in the controuersiae, various arguments to support, in succession, both parties involved in a trial and, in the suasoriae, to deliberate, by impersonating mythological or historical charac-ter(s), before taking a particular decision at a crucial moment. Seneca states that Ovid preferred to deal with the suasoriae rather than with the controuersiae, unless the latter were ethicae, i.e., focused on ethical issues, treated from a psychological perspective (Contr. 2.2.12). Seneca here provides some very interesting information since he allows us to view Ovid's narrative practice in the Metamorphoses from the perspective of these rhetorical exercises. Taking as his starting point the summaries of mythological stories found in such mythographers as Parthenius of Nicaea, Ovid applied to these plots various techniques and skills learned in the schools of rhetoric in order to expand them into long narratives. In these accounts he describes in detail the feelings, thoughts and actions of the main characters by adopting a psychological point of view. He displays great skill in offering insightful observations
Rhetorical values and aesthetic values in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
2018
Among Ovid’s writings the catalogue of metamorphoses is a literary convention which is more frequent and more significant than it may be thought. The apparently arid formula of the concepts list acquired rhetorical, philosophical, and none the less aesthetic values under Ovid’s pen. The process of acquiring rich and delicately expressed significations enhanced over the time from the lyrical distiches of his youth, such as Amores or Heroides, over to the poems written during his exile, such as Tristia, the climax being the didactic poem in dactylic hexameter Metamorphoses (1-8 AD), unfinished or in any case unperfected. The use of a literary text as support across time and space for his polemics with personalities of the Roman cultural or political world is in accordance with the nonconformist spirit of Publius Ovidius Naso.
Nomen omen – Narrative Instantiation of Rhetorical Expressions in Apuleius' Metamorphoses
2006
In Apuleius’ Metamorphoses words are turned into flesh. By “words” I here understand various verbal expressions, such as metaphors, similes, proverbs, or even ceremonial formulae. By “flesh” I understand the reality of the novel’s universe: its characters, scenes, and themes. Thus when the proverbial utres inflati, mentioned by a Petronian freedman, metamorphose into actual participants in Apuleius’ plot in Books 2–3, this is an example of the transformation I have in mind. To a certain extent, turning words into flesh is a feature of all fiction; if strictly formalized, it becomes a description of allegory. However, I wish to argue that in the Metamorphoses, the move is sufficiently specialized to become a distinct narrative device, while being broader and more varied than mere allegory. In what follows, I will discuss some examples of this recurrent device, relate it to the overarching motif of metamorphosis, and suggest a couple of consequences of the device: a textual emendation...
Personification in Ovid's Metamorphoses : Innuidia, Fames, Somnus, Fama
University of Leeds, 2012
Modern scholarship on the Metamorphoses has frequently focused on the shifting character o f the poem mainly produced by the constant variation in tone and diverse subject matter. Particular emphasis has fallen on the multiple stylistic features Ovid uses to appeal to a learned audience. This thesis focuses on and explores the use o f personification ekphraseis which are illustrative examples o f the poet's innovative technique, wit and style. Four major personified figures, Inuidia, Fames, Somnus and Fama play significant roles and figure prominently in the books where they appear. The study is divided into four main chapters where the four extended personification ekphraseis are individually treated. Each setting that Ovid creates for the figures bears its own corresponding reality. So their presence in the different episodes becomes both natural and amusing. Ovid displays a certain structural progression in the use o f personification beginning with theriomorphic representations (Inuidia,
Transforming the Genre, Apuleius' Metamorphoses, Ancient Narrative Suppl. 8
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Identity crisis: scriptae personae in Ovid's Amores 1.4 and 2.5
2011
The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the multifaceted personae of Ovid's Amores, specifically in Amores 1.4 and 2.5. These personae range from Ovid as poet (poeta), lover (amator), and love teacher (praeceptor amoris); the poet's love interest, the puella; the rival, the vir; other unnamed rivals; and reader. I argue that Ovid complicates the roles of the personae in his poetry by means of subversion, inversion and amalgamation. Furthermore, I conclude that as readers, when we understand how these personae interact with each other and ourselves (as readers), we can better comprehend Ovid's poetry and quite possibly gain some insight into his other poetic works. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One. Introduction 1 Chapter Two. Personae in Amores 1.4 12 Chapter Three. Personae in Amores 2.5 36 Chapter Four. Conclusion 59 Bibliography 64 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ars adeo latet arte sua. Met. 10.252 In his book Arts of Love (1993), Kennedy discusses the Pygmalion myth in the tenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses: 1 Pygmalion creates a statue; the story 'ends' with it becoming a 'real' woman. However, a sign 'stands' not for reality, but for another sign in a continuing chain of signification. A statue stands for the female body, but the female body is a signifier in its turn; and so on. It is the function and effect of rhetoric to efface itself, to dissolve the distinction between 'illusion' and 'reality' (ars adeo latet arte sua). The object of such rhetorical persuasion may be its exponent no less than its audience. Pygmalion's statue 'becomes' a 'real' woman; her 'reality' is beyond question because she 'represents' nothing beyond the fulfillment of his desire. The same concept of a realistic yet illusive kind of character can also be seen (or rather, read about) in Ovid's Amores. 2 As a result of these illusive, realistic characters-or what I prefer to call personae-, Ovid is often judged (or even criticized) 3 as deceptive, parodic, and witty. The focus of this thesis is how these characteristics function and what that function suggests about Ovid's poetry. My primary texts will be Amores 1.4 and 2.5, using thorough studies of personae in this 1 Specifically found in lines 243-297 of Met. 10. 2 I owe thanks to Tara Welch, Michael Shaw, and Pamela Gordon for their patience, profound insight, and supportive assessments that have helped make this thesis both comprehensible and knowledgeable. 3 Kennedy (1993) 93 makes a good point, which can be applied to Ovid's critics: "Elegy is thus no less artificial and rule-bound a literary genre than Virgil's Eclogues, the only difference being that the literary genre in elegy wear city clothes and live in Rome whereas the characters in the Eclogues wear rustic clothes and live in the country, a theme Veyne then goes on to develop in his chapter 7." Katz (2009) 2 explains that up until the 1970s, many scholars viewed Ovid as a mere imitator of his elegiac predecessors and thus considered his use of "parody" and constant irony and humor to be deficiencies. However, Katz (2009) 2 includes that many scholars today see Ovid's elegiac lover as "complex, humorous, and irreverent-as a true desultor amoris whom the poet portrays as both the lover dominated by his puella and the dominating lover who shrewdly manipulates his beloved." 145 And like when a Maeonian or Carian woman stains ivory with crimson to be a cheek piece for horses; And it lies in a treasure chamber, and though many horsemen pray to possess it; but, as a king's prize, it lies there, 87 Miller (2002) 257. 88 Booth (1991) 122. Booth also adds that "Roman thought lilies & roses 'went' together; see Plin. Nat. xxi. 22 et interpositum (lilium) etiam maxime rosas decet."