Some Aspects Of The Structure Of The Phaethon Episode In Ovid'sMetamorphoses

Abstract

Although scholars have expended increasing efforts over the last twenty years or so in either detecting or establishing large structural and thematic units within Ovid'sperpetuum carmen, little attention, as far as I am aware, has been directed towards the evident care taken by Ovid in his arrangement of material within individual episodes, and the resultant over-all structure of those episodes. The aim of the present paper is to focus attention upon a single episode to which Ovid seems to have paid particular attention in these respects. I refer to the long story of Phaethon, which occupies the last part of book 1, and most of the first half of book 2, of theMetamorphoses, and intend to explore two different lines of approach in examining the structure of this episode.