Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Traditions of Augustan Poetry

Download or read book Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Traditions of Augustan Poetry written by Peter E. Knox and published by Cambridge Philological Society. This book was released on 2020-08-30 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having established his reputation as an elegist, Ovid turned to the composition of hexameter narrative. Although the Metamorphoses has often been treated as an appendix to the history of Augustan poetry, the principal lines of stylistic and thematic development continue in Ovid's work. Drawing upon the structure and content of Vergil's Sixth Eclogue, the Metamorphoses is an intricate and allusive poem that combines elements from the entire range of Roman verse composed in the Alexandrian manner. Professor Knox focuses in particular upon the contributions of elegy and epyllion, examining the manner in which Ovid exploits the diction of these genres in order to distinguish his poem from traditional epic verse. The study concludes with an investigation of the aetiological stories of the final book and the sustained evocation of Callimachus' Aetia at its close.