Ovid and Mythography

Author:

Farrell Joseph1

Affiliation:

1. classical studies, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

AbstractFew, if any, Greek or Latin authors have had greater influence on the reception of classical mythology than Ovid. The Metamorphoses is paramount in this regard, but Ovid’s entire oeuvre engages with mythology and mythography both by anticipating aspects of his magnum opus or by taking a pointedly different approach from it. Two aspects of Ovid’s work are mutually informing but readily distinguishable from each other. First, like other poets, Ovid reacts in sophisticated ways to earlier poetic treatments of specific myths. This aspect has to do with establishing his place in the canon of ancient Greek and Roman writers who were essential reading for any educated, cultivated person. Second, Ovid also appropriates the forms and procedures of mythographic scholarship in prose. The structure of the Metamorphoses, for instance, resembles that of a mythological handbook or encyclopedia, e.g., the one ascribed to Apollodorus, or of a universal history, such as that of Diodorus Siculus. It seems likely that Ovid meant his debt to both traditions, the literary and the scholarly, to be apparent, and that the energy generated through hybridization—by crossing “elevated” poetic genres with more “utilitarian” prose ones—is what makes Ovid so valuable to the artistic and scholarly reception of ancient mythography.

Publisher

Oxford University Press

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