What ovit does with metamorphosis is new. Not jus sterm point out that it's everywhere in myth but also his attention to it is very different from what you find in, for example, homer. So circe turns men into pigs, but the way it's described, she basically makes a gesture and they become a pig. Ovid is much more interested in processes, and i think this is very similar to his interest in relationship drama. He likes to see in the herodes a person talking their way from one state of mind to another. Likewise, we see a person going from one form to another and experiencing that change. In book nine, there's a n
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43BC-17/18AD) who, as he described it, was destroyed by 'carmen et error', a poem and a mistake. His works have been preserved in greater number than any of the poets of his age, even Virgil, and have been among the most influential. The versions of many of the Greek and Roman myths we know today were his work, as told in his epic Metamorphoses and, together with his works on Love and the Art of Love, have inspired and disturbed readers from the time they were created. Despite being the most prominent poet in Augustan Rome at the time, he was exiled from Rome to Tomis on the Black Sea Coast where he remained until he died. It is thought that the 'carmen' that led to his exile was the Art of Love, Ars Amatoria, supposedly scandalising Augustus, but the 'error' was not disclosed.
With
Maria Wyke
Professor of Latin at University College London
Gail Trimble
Brown Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Trinity College at the University of Oxford
And
Dunstan Lowe
Senior Lecturer in Latin Literature at the University of Kent
Producer: Simon Tillotson