Ovid's Influence On Ars Amatoria

Change and transformations are constantly happening and are a part of our everyday life. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a book of collections of Roman Myths about the changes and transformations in the physical world and ones we experience in human life. Ovid explores transformations of all kind in his epic poem, some literal and others figurative. There are stories of change in the human context of aging and also very literal transformations such as turning into a plant.

Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” is an allegory to human pride and limitation. The story describes the skills of Arachne, a young girl who is extremely skilled at weaving. As a result of her talent, Arachne was very prideful and often acclaimed that her work was better than that of celebrated goddess, Pallas. Pallas, however, detested this and therefore disguised herself as an old woman and challenged Arachne to a weaving contest. Pallas warns Arachne that “experience comes from lengthened years,” although, stubbornly, Arachne stands her ground. Due to Arachne’s misguided self-righteousness, she believes that her work is god-like. This however, is not exactly the case.

To fully understand the poems; Metamorphoses and Theogony, one needs to understand more about the writers. Hesiod was a greek poet, who lived around 700BC, and was inspired by muses to write epic poetry. Theogony is considered one of earliest works and concerns itself with the cosmogony, or the origins of the world and theogony, or the gods, and pays specific detail to genealogy (West, 1996: 521). Ovid, on the other hand, was a Roman poet, born in 43 BC – the year after the assassination of Julius Caesar and lived during Augustus’s reign. It’s said that his father took him to Rome to become educated in the ways of

Stories often have similar plots, characters, and motifs spread over time. For instance, Ovid in his book, “The Metamorphoses”, wrote about two lovers who take their lives for each other. This story was called “Pyramus and Thisbe” Similarly, Shakespeare, 1,587 years later wrote a similar, yet more modern story in the form of a play, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Therefore, The similarities between Ovid's "Pyramus and Thisbe" and Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet are apparent in the elements of plot, conflict, and characterization.

Ovid, the author of the Fasti, was a Roman poet active during the age of Augustus, and was famously exiled by the emperor under mysterious circumstances. Born in Sulmo, Italy in the year 43 BCE, Ovid was a contemporary of the historian Livy and the esteemed poet Virgil. After being exiled by the emperor for “A poem and an error” , he continued to write in his reluctant new home of Tomis on the Black Sea, and this is where he penned Fasti. Due to his exile, Ovid had no access to the many resources provided in Rome, which likely impacted his work ability and probably left parts of the Fasti unfinished. The Fasti was an entertaining retelling of stories that had influenced and shaped Rome so as to be included in tradition and holidays. In this sense it

Homer and Ovid are two of the oldest, most influential poets that have ever lived. Although they are both poets, they have several differences in their writings. Homer, a Greek poet, is most famous for his epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. Ovid, a Roman poet, is most famous for Metamorphoses a 15 book poem containing over 250 myths. To compare and contrast these two poets and their writing styles, I will use Achilles’ battle with Hector in Homer’s Iliad book 22 and compare it with Achilles’ battle with Cycnus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses book 12. The comparison of these battles will give us a better understanding of these poets different views on the Trojan War.

In Ovid’s “The Story of Daedalus and Icarus”, Ovid uses characterization to make the characters realistic and vivid and to reveal plot through the characters’ actions, thoughts, speech and physical appearance. Without the characterization of Daedalus and Icarus, understanding “The Story of Daedalus and Icarus” completely is not possible. Ovid hides important pieces of the plot in the text, and wants the readers to reveal the true meaning of the story by looking into the characteristics of the main characters, Daedalus and Icarus. With the view of their wants and responsibilities, the story becomes clear to the reader and the purpose of this story in a poem is revealed.

The view Ovid takes on women is not always clear. In some passages he has a violent perspective on women. Ovid writes about how he easily could have taken advantage of women, displaying a negative viewpoint of ownership towards females. Similarly he says “never a virgin there was free from the lust of a hand”, which shows that men desire women, and a virgin is held as a high prize, one that is worth committing the act of adultery for (Art 1. 89-126).

In one word, the author Ovid describes the overall content and theme of his poem with the word “Metamorphoses” in the title. Some relative synonyms of this word among others are; altar, change, mutate, develop, and reshape (metamorphose). But Ovid goes further to describe the theme within the first two lines of the poem.

“An Imaginary Life” by David Malouf is a first person point of view story, narrated by Ovid himself. It is set in 8 BC when Ovid was exiled from Rome to Tomis. His exile forced him to face many barriers, where language, knowledge and time of the setting were most crucial. Although Rome and Tomis were fairly close, Tomis was behind in inventions and knowledge.

Virgil was Rome’s unwilling epic poet, he gave the Roman people a cohesive narrative that tied them to the past and propelled them towards the future. This narrative, The Aeneid, had its basis in local lore as well as ties to the older Greek epics of Homer. The Aeneid almost functions as an extension of The Iliad and Odyssey, with its protagonist, Aeneas, being a minor figure in the earlier poems, and the work itself academically divided into “Odyssean” and “Iliadic” parts. In this relationship Virgil owes a creative debt to Homer, and there is a resemblance that can be seen with striking clarity when the experiences of Homers’ Odysseus and Virgil’s Aeneas are examined side by side. Odysseus and Aeneas are both honour bound to reach the destinations of their respective journeys, Odysseus to rule Ithaca and Aeneas to found Rome, and while ones journey often mirrors the others, there are significant differences between the two. The major differences that can be observed lie in their characters and forms of heroism and these variations shape the course of their narratives, yet the similarities of their internal journeys and ultimate fates remain intact.

The tale of the Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas and how he founds the Roman people. The most well known version of this story is Virgil’s Aeneid. The traditional interpretation of Virgil’s depiction of the hero and the myth is that it was used as propaganda for the new imperial system that the emperor Augustus had introduced. In contrast with this is the Harvard School interpretation, which states that Virgil’s Aeneid is actually undermining the Imperial system. Despite there being some evidence for this, Virgil’s illustration best fits under the traditional interpretation. In contrast with this is Ovid’s Little Aeneid found in his Metamorphoses. This essay will analyse these illustrations

Transformations from one shape or form into another are the central theme in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The popularity and timelessness of this work stems from the manner of story telling. Ovid takes stories relevant to his culture and time period, and weaves them together into one work with a connecting theme of transformation throughout. The thread of humor that runs through Metamorphoses is consistent with the satire and commentary of the work. The theme is presented in the opening lines of Metamorphoses, where the poet invokes the gods, who are responsible for the changes, to look favorably on his efforts to compose. The changes are of many kinds: from human to animal, animal to human, thing to

The epic poem The Aeneid, by Vergil adapts scenes, similes, and characters from the Odyssey written by Homer. The works of both authors include the simile of Artemis/Diana. Other characters do overlap in some of Vergil's scenes for instance, Aeneas and Odysseus encounter Cyclops. Both authors also reference the scene of the underworld. Although, Virgil adapts similarities from Homer's epic, each encounter has noticeable comparisons and/or differences. Vergil presents the epic of the Aeneid with a different purpose. At the beginning of the Aeneid, Aeneas leaves his home with other Romans after the Trojan War. Homer starts his epic with Odysseus wanting to return home form Troy.  The motives that guide each character differ from one another. Homers the Odyssey is more of the journey of a man longing to be home again, after the trojan war has ended. His actions are somewhat selfish at times. Virgil's main character Aeneas is driven by more of a scene of duty to the gods, because he is instructed to help build Rome for future generations.

Ovid's "Metamorphoses" is sometimes argued as a non-epic as well as a true epic. It is mainly viewed as a non-epic because Ovid's subject matter is far from the heroic themes of the "Illiad", "Odyssey", and the "Aeneid" (Keith 237). Ovid was different and was motivated to push the epic beyond its previous boundaries (Ovid). Perhaps in hopes to confirm the structure of his work, Ovid declares that he will undertake "one continuous song in many thousands of verses" (Keith 238-239). Ovid's wording here is a self-conscious declaration that he is going to write in the epic mode.