The Image of the Poet in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Wisconsin Studies in Classics)

Barbara Pavlock unmasks major figures in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as surrogates for his narrative persona, highlighting the conflicted revisionist nature of the Metamorphoses. Although Ovid ostensibly validates traditional customs and institutions, instability is in fact a defining feature of both the core epic values and his own poetics. The Image of the Poet explores issues central to Ovid’s poetics—the status of the image, the generation of plots, repetition, opposition between refined and inflated epic style, the reliability of the narrative voice, and the interrelation of rhetoric and poetry. The work explores the constructed author and complements recent criticism focusing on the reader in the text.2009 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine Barbara Pavlock unmasks major figures in Ovid's Metamorphoses as surrogates for his narrative persona, highlighting the conflicted revisionist nature of the Metamorphoses. Although Ovid ostensibly validates traditional customs and institutions, instability is in fact a defining feature of both the core epic values and his own poetics. The Image of the Poet explores issues central to Ovid's poetics—the status of the image, the generation of plots, repetition, opposition between refined and inflated epic style, the reliability of the narrative voice, and the interrelation of rhetoric and poetry. The work explores the constructed author and complements recent criticism focusing on the reader in the text. 2009 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1 Narcissus and Elegy......Page 25 2 The Metamorphic Medea......Page 49 3 Daedalus and the Labyrinth of the Metamorphoses......Page 72 4 Orpheus and the Internal Narrator......Page 100 5 Ulysses and the Arms of Achilles......Page 121 Conclusion......Page 143 Notes......Page 148 Bibliography......Page 194 Index......Page 206