Preface: Ovid and Identity in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Through six case studies in contemporary receptions of Ovid, this special issue, Ovid and Identity in the Twenty-First Century, asks why the Roman poet is still ‘everywhere’. The collection develops and complicates perspectives on the now time-honoured concept of the ‘postmodern Ovid’, and also of postmodernism itself. Articles address dialogues with Ovid in work by the German poets Barbara Kohler and Anja Utler; the American novelists E. L. Doctorow and Jeffrey Eugenides, the Scottish novelist Ali Smith; the Israeli artist and intellectual Bracha Ettinger, and in the Titian 2012 project, particularly the Machina ballet. The final article surveys and critiques the last thirty years of Latinist scholarship on Ovid, in particular its evolving engagements with postmodernism. This final article then proffers new ways to read Ovid. Each article constitutes, either explicitly or implicitly, fresh insights into the role of Ovid in the reinscription of, or the modification of, or the rejection of and the turning away from, the fleeting-and-yet-tenacious moment of the postmodern. As a whole, this special issue demonstrates that while certain versions of Ovid enable the rebooting of postmodernism in newly-politicized modes, in other guises he plays a crucial part in recent cultural forms that reject postmodernism altogether. These essays testify, therefore, to the role of classical reception studies in critiquing and modifying postmodern thought.