Works Of Ovid Research Articles

Lucia by Bernard Minier

Reviewed by: Lucia by Bernard Minier Nathalie G. Cornelius Minier, Bernard. Lucia. XO, 2022. ISBN 978-2-37448-406-8. Pp. 480. Like Minier's earlier works, this well-researched procedural thriller opens with a shocking prologue. Lieutenant Lucia Guerrero, a member of l'UCO, the elite unit of the Spanish Guardia Civil, discovers her naked colleague brutally stabbed, and glued to a cross in the hills outside Madrid under a pouring rain. As her name implies, this tough female lead is a powerhouse of energy and determination with a knack for tracking down elusive violent criminals (Lucia derived from "light" and Guerrero means "warrior" in Spanish). This new heroine's grit and rebellious nature is well-suited to the demands of the case despite her clichéd backstory as a crimefighter whose past traumas have pushed her to sacrifice her marriage and custody of her young son for her career. In parallel with Lucia's investigation of her partner's gruesome murder, a group of criminology students guided by professor Salomón Borges of the University of Salamanca discovers that DIMAS, their algorithmic crime-analysis database, has found correlations between a 1989 unsolved double-murder and two more recent cold-cases involving killings of couples in various parts of Spain. All victims were enigmatically posed, their bodies glued into place. Guerrero and Borges join forces in this entertaining, well-paced mystery complete with red herrings, false clues, exciting chase scenes, and atmospherically creepy locations. The readers find themselves transported to Spain, whose geographical contrasts highlight the collision between historic traditions and the country's status in the contemporary European Union. Unfortunately, this conflict between old and modern is not explored in any depth although vivid descriptions of cityscapes and references to famous writers and philosophers through the characters' names provided for that opportunity. The plot is also formulaic, lacking the creativity of some of Minier's earlier novels. Consequently, the murderer's identity is poorly obscured by the thinly developed storyline. Intriguing side-stories are all too brief and initial references to more unusual psychological disorders merited further attention rather than being subsequently ignored in favor of general platitudes on mental illness and childhood trauma. The noteworthy highlight of the novel is the exploration of violence in Ovid's Metamorphoses as the source and signature of the criminal act. The cause of Ovid's exile itself is a secondary mystery on which Minier briefly speculates, and the disturbing themes of the Renaissance and Baroque paintings inspired by Ovid's work are as unsettling as the murders Lucia must solve. Minier has voiced his intent to bring back Lucia Guerrero in the future. If so, perhaps she will return having moved beyond her prototypical characteristics and with a more challenging case to solve. In the meantime, Minier's M, le bord de l'abîme (2019) (FR 94.1) which also features a female detective while exploring the potential of intelligent technology, immerses the reader into Japanese culture and is superior on all levels to Lucia. [End Page 240] Nathalie G. Cornelius Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French

In the Wake of Medea: Neoclassical Theater and the Arts of Destruction by Juliette Cherbuliez

Reviewed by: In the Wake of Medea: Neoclassical Theater and the Arts of Destruction by Juliette Cherbuliez Nathan Bowman In the Wake of Medea: Neoclassical Theater and the Arts of Destruction. By Juliette Cherbuliez. Fordham University Press, 2020. 249 pages. Cloth: $110.00, Paper: $32.00. 19 illustrations. French tragedy is often defined by a rigid adherence to rules of form and decorum that, among other characteristics, espoused a strict moral code for what could, and could not, be staged. Within the study of theatre history, the perceived rigidity of its structures finds French tragedy portrayed as mundane and passionless. And yet, one cannot deny the impact that French tragic theory has had on subsequent interpretations of tragedy in all its iterations. A significant effect of the neoclassical era has been the popularization of the idea that violence was rejected in all forms in tragedy. This supposed rejection of violence is said to be rooted in the audience's distaste for such things onstage. In In the Wake of Medea, Juliette Cherbuliez challenges this traditional portrait of French tragedy. Far from rejecting it, Cherbuliez argues that questions of violence are central to one's understanding of the genre and its role in the politics of seventeenth-century French society. Using the play Médée by Pierre Corneille as its starting point, the book explores the literary strategies implemented in the works of French tragedy that allowed both playwrights and audiences to interrogate the role of violence both on stage and in society. For Cherbuliez, the figure of Medea is exemplary of the persistence of violence in the arts and its "destructive powers" (22). The story of Medea highlights a specific mode of violence that Cherbuliez argues is at the heart of French tragedy. This Medean presence within art is characterized by an Otherness that is both lingering and disruptive within Western literature. In the Wake of Medea is organized into five chapters with a preceding introduction and manifesto. Each chapter gives an in-depth literary analysis of a specific work of tragedy that Cherbuliez argues can be characterized by this violent Medean presence. However, the theoretical framework for this project—the question of "what is Medean violence?"—is largely covered in the book's introduction. In the introduction, Cherbuliez defines Medean violence as having five primary features. Medean violence is: (1) "relational," (2) "unassimilable," (3) "exceptional," (4) "untimely," and (5) "nonredemptive" (19–20). Diverging from the empathetic interpretations of Medea prominent since the late twentieth century, Cherbuliez argues that the Medean presence is characterized chiefly by its foreignness—that is, society's inability to comprehend this force not only on a social level, but an epistemological one. Medea's is not a presence that elicits understanding; it is utterly disruptive. After laying this theoretical groundwork, Cherbuliez offers a brief manifesto that depicts the figure Antigone as an ethical paradigm of Western philosophy in order to then juxtapose this figure with Medea. Cherbuliez states, however, that the "cornerstone of this book, against which all the other chapters can be read," is the first chapter, that which explores the Médée of Corneille (32). This sets up [End Page 89] the expectation that the first chapter will explore each of the five characteristics of Medean violence within the framework of Médée, and therefore, provide a theoretical model for understanding each subsequent chapter. Yet, this chapter focuses narrowly on the concept of relationships within Corneille's tragedy, and even more narrowly on Corneille's use of Medea's gown as a symbol of self and skin that defines her relationships throughout the play. As such, chapter 1 seems only to expand upon Cherbuliez's first feature of Medean violence—the relational. Each of the following chapters takes up a different poetic work and makes little reference to Corneille's Médée. Chapter 2 is primarily concerned with the works of Ovid and their impact on the development of the figure of Medea within the Western canon. Though it makes slight reference to Ovid's influence on Corneille, the chapter itself drifts away from a discussion of French tragedy altogether. Chapter 3 returns the reader to French tragedy, but...

Anna Perenna in Vergil, Ovid, and Statius: A Curse or A Blessing?

Abstract The discovery of the fountain of Anna Perenna in Rome in 1999, and especially the presence there of curse tablets, establishes that she was known as a religious presence in the time of Ovid and, presumably, of Vergil. This paper seeks to examine the depictions we find of her in the works of Ovid, Vergil, and in Statius’ Punica 8.

Ovid, Shakespeare, Shevchenko: features of autocommunication practices

The paper presents analysis of cases of indirect literature influences of Ovid and Shakespeare upon Taras Shevchenko's poetry. The author questions the view which is common in modern Ukrainian literature studies that Shevchenko's interest in Ovid's works was caused by similarity of certain facts of their biographies, and in Shakespeare's one — because of their oeuvres' humanistic dimension. Based on analysis of some relevant aspects of Ovid's and Shakespeare's works, and poems, letters and diaries by Shevchenko, the author argues that Shevchenko's keen interest in both poets' works was specified by his concern with modes of autocommunication and its display. In Shevchenko's poems, autocommunication manifest is addressed to his own poems in many cases; in Ovid's works, it manifested itself in the same way, while for Shakespeare's dramas, it appeared in numerous soliloquys delivered by characters of his. Shevchenko's fierce need for autocommunication was rooted in his psychological portrait, therefore, he was interested in Ovid and Shakespeare not because of searching for some objects for reception or imitation but because of deep feeling of emotional affinity with Ovid's and Shakespeare's characters.

Banned from the Libraries?: Ovid's Books and Their Fate in the Exile Poetry

This article looks into the fate of Ovid's works in the wake of his relegation. Were they expelled from the public libraries of Rome as is commonly thought? A re-examination of pertinent passages in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, as well as of what is known of the workings of ancient libraries and the history of Roman book censorship, presents an alternative. The investigation concludes with an account of the factors which may have given rise to the communis opinio.

Saviana Stănescu’s Barbarian women: the Empire Writes Back to Ovid

This article discusses the Romanian playwright Saviana Stănescu and her continued engagement with the works of Ovid, tracking the feminist methodology which links her varied work. While Ovid’s self-definition against the ‘barbarian others’ he encounters in Tomis is crucial to an understanding of the exile poetry, in a postcolonial world the ideologically loaded nature of the term barbarus must be recognized, and its use and replication in modern translations and receptions interrogated. Characterized by an astute critical awareness and a committed political engagement, Stănescu’s classical receptions draw out the damaging real-world consequences for a people labelled ‘barbarians’. Her work offers a defence of the reviled Black Sea inhabitants of Ovid’s exilic poems by providing a critique of the colonial representations of the ‘barbarians’ therein, and exposing the power mechanisms of ancient and contemporary imperialism alike.

Šekspirove istorijske drame - glorifikacija ili subverzija vladajuće ideologije?

Due to prioritizing Machiavellian power-craving aspirations over the inner voice of conscience, the majority of Shakespeare's rulers from the history plays suffers from the tragic 'dissociation of -sensibility' (Eliot 1921: 64, 66). Since the process of giving priority to public obligations instead to private inclinations is easily detected in the contemporary political scene, especially in the form of the imposed choice between legalism and morality, valuable ideas of the 20th century humanist critics (Kantorowicz, Rubenstein, Bauman, -Eliade, Hamvas) are problematized in the paper. Their contemporary insights have been combined with the humanist philosophical and ethic tradition in the works of Ovid, Ficino, Mirandola, Bruno, More. The Renaissance spokesperson of this humanist tradition was Shakespeare; through the chronological survey of his history plays, the paper aims at revealing the author's criticism of the dominant Tudor ideology and neccessity for its subversion. Thus, the attitude presented by the representatives of the new historicist critical school, particularly Stephen Greenblatt, that the renaissance social institutions shaped, restricted and controlled an individual's conduct, whereby every attempt at subverting the dominant system was doomed to failure, is strongly criticized. The importance of 'the -historical sense' (Eliot 1963: 34), the concept relying on the permanent bond between the past and present, for the sake of creating a more humane future, has been recognized in Shakespeare's history plays, apart from the already mentioned 20th century humanist thinkers, also by the presentist critics at the beginning of the 21st -century, particularly Hughes Grady and Terence Hawkes (2007), who tirelessly claim, like Jan Kott before them (1990), that Shakespeare is our contemporary.

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes

<i>L’Hystoire romaine de la belle Cleriende</i> de Macé de Villebresme, à la croisée de l’épître et de l’élégie

In 1529, and again in 1533, Lyon printer Claude Nourry published the epistle Lepistre de la belle Cleriende. Here we can trace—in this epistle by Macé de Villebresme—the influence of Ovid’s Heroides, translated into French around 1492 by Octovien de St Gelais. Using the definitions of the epistolary and elegiac genres established by the different poetic arts of the time, this article aims to present Lepistre de la belle Cleriende in the context of these literary genres and their development. Specifically, a comparison between the works of Ovid and Macé de Villebresme will allow a better understanding of the influence that the translation into French of the Heroides has had on the versified epistolary genre during the first half of the sixteenth century in France.

Ovid in the Middle Ages ed. by James G. Clark, Frank T. Coulson, and Kathryn L. McKinley (review)

Reviewed by: Ovid in the Middle Ages ed. by James G. Clark, Frank T. Coulson, and Kathryn L. McKinley Hilary Maddocks Clark, James G., Frank T. Coulson, and Kathryn L. McKinley, eds, Ovid in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011; hardback; pp. 384; 21 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. 65.00; ISBN 9781107002050. In the Middle Ages, the poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43BCE-17CE) was the classical author par excellence. His works, in particular the Metamorphoses, were widely read, imitated, glossed, translated, and moralized, and were immensely influential in the monasteries, pulpits, secular schools, and courts of Europe. This excellent collection of essays offers a detailed introduction to the reception and transmission of Ovid from the fall of the Roman Empire to the late fifteenth century. The distinguished authors give overviews of different aspects of Ovid's influence from several perspectives, including literary criticism, classics, historiography, art history, and queer and gender studies. The different iterations of Ovid's works are discussed in some detail and while most of the contributions are focused on France and England, Ovid's impact in Byzantium, Spain, and Italy is also covered. The Ovid that emerges from these essays, protean and 'incorrigibly plural', enjoyed a wide appeal for a diverse audience. The school tradition in France from 1180 to 1400 is discussed by Frank T. Coulson in his account of Latin commentaries on the Metamorphosis and the development of an allegorical mode of reading. These include the early literal Orléans tradition and the very influential thirteenth century anonymous Vulgate commentary. The commentaries are characterized by a multiplicity of approaches for different audiences, who it seems, read Ovid's text carefully and in detail. The Metamorphoses was translated into French and moralized as the Ovide moralisé in the early fourteenth century, possibly at the request of Clémence of Hungary. In the Ovide moralisé, which is the subject of the chapter by Ana Pairet, each fable is paraphrased, glossed, and read as a moral exemplum or [End Page 220] spiritual allegory. This vernacular version was best known at the French court and the weighty volumes, which were six times the length of the Latin original, were also the most extensively illustrated of all manuscripts of Ovid's works. In addition to pointing out the difficulties in establishing the anonymous translator's sources, the author refers to Ovid's innate malleability and the multiplicity of interpretations revealed in the hermeneutic process. The vast illustrative programmes of the Ovide moralisé are further described by Carla Lord in her survey of imagery of the manuscripts of the Metamorphoses and its commentaries. Ovid's amatory works, in particular the Heroides and Ars amatoria were also translated into French, and as Marilynn Desmond argues in her contribution, their erotic discourse contributed to the emergence of an essentially hetero-erotic ethic in medieval literary cultures. Ovid's works were just as enthusiastically received in England. In his discussion of late medieval monastic use of Ovid, James G. Clark shows that, contrary to accepted views, the monasteries did not abandon the classics after 1200. Recent research has shown that Ovid's works may in fact have grown in importance. Certainly, monks appear to have been the first English scholars to have shown an interest in Bersuire's 1340 Latin moralization of the Metamorphoses, the Ovidium moralizatus, as a source of exempla for their sermons. Siegfried Wenzel analyses the popularity of Ovid in sermons by both mendicant and monastic orders in late medieval England, noting that his works could give 'delight even in the most prosaic of rhetorical enterprises'. The stories of the gods and heroes served the general purpose of 'proof' texts or exempla, and it seems, were intended primarily for a learned audience. That Ovid's impact in England was marked is also demonstrated in the works of Chaucer and Gower, as Kathryn L. McKinley shows. She discusses four Ovidian texts including Gower's Confessio amantis and Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. Both authors drew on a range of available texts, including Latin school texts and moralized versions, although Gower seems to have preferred moralized narratives (for example, he identifies the legend of Pyramus...

Love: A Suspect Form , and: A Witch's Dictionary , and: National Anthem (review)

Reviewed by: Love: A Suspect Form, and: A Witch's Dictionary, and: National Anthem Stephen C. Behrendt (bio) Judith Infante. Love: A Suspect Form. Shearsman Books. Sarah Kennedy. A Witch's Dictionary. Elixir Press. Kevin Prufer. National Anthem. Four Way Books. Aristotle famously claimed that the difference between the historian and the poet is that "the one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing that might be." Poetry, Aristotle continued, because it deals with universal matters rather than with particulars, was "more philosophic and of graver import" than history. Despite Aristotle's fondness for binaries like these, his system left little room for what we call historical fiction—or fictional history, which is not quite the same thing. The writer of historical fiction begins with the empirical record, to be sure, but her or his interest tends less toward some sort of strictly photorealistic record of the past than toward a version of how things might have been, of how the [End Page 169] past appears when observed through the eyes and sensibilities of the age in which the work is composed. This is why I suggest that "fictional history" may be a better, fairer term than the more familiar "historical fiction." Certainly it seems more appropriate for the three books I shall consider here, each of which treats history in ways that interlace present-day sensibilities and preoccupations with what each author presents as an essentially historical framework. Start with Judith Infante's Love: A Suspect Form, the latest among many retellings (including Alexander Pope's famous 1717 poem) of the history of Heloise and Abelard. Over the ground bass supplied by the factual history of the famous twelfth-century lovers, Infante weaves a contrapuntal polyphony that voices the thoughts and passions of the principal players in this tragic drama. Because the seemingly familiar tale is not always remembered correctly, Infante's brief prose introduction traces its outlines while explaining how and why she has been drawn to the subject. Abelard, the self-proclaimed "Philosopher of the World" at the new university at Paris, and Heloise, the brilliant and highly educated niece of a canon at Notre Dame, became clandestine lovers after he became her tutor. She gave birth to the son they named Astralabe, but bowing to the expectation that Catholic teachers be celibate, they kept their marriage a secret. When Abelard later sent Heloise back to the convent, probably to cover himself, her uncle read the move as abandonment and took his revenge by having him drugged and castrated. The lovers subsequently took Holy Orders and saw one another only occasionally; Heloise eventually became an abbess, despite her evident disinterest in the religious life; the monk Abelard rose to the status of abbot, but his philosophical doubts led him into conflicts with the Church that eventually resulted in two trials for heresy and banishment to an isolated monastery; Astralabe was turned over to Abelard's sister and vanished from the historical record. Love: A Suspect Form consists, then, of the voices of Heloise and Abe-lard (primarily) extrapolated from the letters they exchanged for years after their separation, as well as the wholly invented voices of Astralabe (whose angry prose paragraphs reflect outcast status) and other contemporaries. Adding to the collection's rich intertextuality, each poem is preceded by quotations from Heloise's and Abelard's actual letters, from the Bible, and from the works of Ovid, whose work (widely studied in the medieval universities) provides the paradigm of metamorphosis and myth-making upon which Infante works her history-based variations. Abelard's poems reflect his uneasy posture between self-justification and self-pity: I am severed from the One who burns me.(He wants no offering whose testicles are cutor bruised or torn). I am less than a healthy goat. Yet she weeps. (Knowing I stand here in shadowto see her veiling?) Familiar with the classics,she addresses this wrong with a fitting quote— [End Page 170] Noble husband, too great for me to wed … ("Abelard: Suspect Form," 70) This is Abelard: learned philosopher who has Heloise quote the poet Lucan as she becomes a nun with lines...

The Vatican mythographers

The Vatican Mythographers offers the first complete English translation of three important sources of knowledge about the survival of classical mythology from the Carolingian era to the High Middle Ages and beyond. The Latin texts were discovered in manuscripts in the Vatican library and published together in the nineteenth century. The three so-called Vatican Mythographers compiled, analyzed, interpreted, and transmitted a vast collection of myths for use by students, poets, and artists. In terms consonant with Christian purposes, they elucidated the fabulous narratives and underlying themes in the works of Ovid, Virgil, Statius, and other poets of antiquity. In so doing, the Vatican Mythographers provided handbooks that included descriptions of ancient rites and customs, curious etymologies, and, above all, moral allegories. Thus we learn that Bacchus is a naked youth who rides a tiger because drunkenness is never mature, denudes us of possessions, and begets ferocity; or that Ulysses, husband of Penelope, passed by the monstrous Scylla unharmed because a wise man bound to chastity overcomes lust. The extensive collection of myths illustrates how this material was used for moral lessons. To date, the works of the Vatican Mythographers have remained inaccessible to scholars and students without a good working knowledge of Latin. The translation thus fulfills a scholarly void. It is prefaced by an introduction that discusses the purposes of the Vatican Mythographers, the influences on them, and their place in medieval and Renaissance mythography. Of course, it also entertains with a host of stories whose undying appeal captivates, charms, inspires, instructs, and sometimes horrifies us.The book should have wide appeal for a whole range of university courses involving myth.

Ovid's Lovers: Desire, Difference and the Poetic Imagination by Victoria Rimell

332 BOOK REVIEWS Ovid'sLovers: Desire, Difference andthe Poetic Imagination. ByVICTORIA RIMELL. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2006.Pp. viii+ 235.Cloth,$90.00.ISBN 0-521-86219-1. Recentscholarlyfocuson Ovid's interest in change and boundary transgressionhas raised new questions about how constantly transforming subjectsrelateto one another.VictoriaRimell's book addresses some ofthesequestionsby seekingout momentsin Ovid's poetrywhena competition betweendesiringsubjects,rather thanthe decisivemasteryofone subjectoveranother,shapes thepoet's verse. BorrowingIrigaray'sconceptofthe"being-in-relation" (p. 4), R. has chosen to reconsiderpower in Ovid as relational,ratherthanhierarchical (p. 3). Her study of relationshipsbetween subjects looks primarily at theArs,Heroides and Medicamina, thoughthereis some discussion of the Metamorphoses and occasional referenceto the Amoresand exilic poetry.By using a less hierarchicalapproach to explore how subjectsrelateto one another,R. hopes to revise predominantmodels oftheOvidian artist, whichview Pygmalion(e.g., Anderson(1963)),Orpheus (e.g.,Segal (1989)) or mostrecently Narcissus (e.g.,Hardie (2002)) as theartistparexcellence. ThoughNarcissus and Orpheus play significant roles in the developmentof R.'s argument, she offers Medusa as totemicfortheOvidian artistic process , sincehermythimpliesa moredialecticalprocessofviewingand creating.R. suggeststhatwithintheMedusa mythwe findan "aition ofpoetrytorivalthatofNarcissus" (p. 16). The book has some impressive moments,and R. is good at trackinginternalreminiscencethroughoutOvid's eroticpoetry.In Chapter2,herreadingoftheCephalus and Procrisstory(pp. 97-103) at theend ofArs3 revealshow thetale replaysand bringsto tragic conclusionthe contradictory signals prescribedthroughout theArs. For R. a frustrating "mirror-logic" (p. 96) governsthe relationship betweenbooks and loversin thepoem, and theauthordemonstrates a proliferation of reflections and mimicryamong male and female pupils. R. also highlights, especially in theHeroides(Chapters4-6), how tracesofthepraeceptor's advice on epistolarydiscourse inform our impressionof Ovidian eroticsas fuelled by two creating,and oftencompeting, subjects. Unfortunately, these positive contributions are underminedby an overalllack ofclarity, evidentinitiallyin R.'s haphazard chronological groupingof Ovid's works. R. concedes thatshe is not concernedto "plot a teleologyofOvidian erotics"(p. 8), yetshe explains her choice of texts(Heroides, Ars,Medicamina and Metamorphoses) as an attemptto definea period of the poet's life,an impulse toward relationality. Thus,"...[a]ll thesetexts,withtheexceptionofHeroides 1-15, were written betweenfourand eightyears ofeach other,and BOOK REVIEWS 333 make up thebackbone ofOvid's life'swork" (p. 4). By omittingthe Amoresfromher list of core elegiac texts(!) and describingtheir presentation ofloverand beloved as "morestraightforwardly formulated " (p. 4), R.bypassesthedifficulties ofdatingthetwice-published work,thougha good deal of compositionand revisionofthesepoems probably occurred around the same time as that of the Ars, Medicamina and Heroides.1 A more significant problemis themethodology, by whichlinks proposed between textsare oftenbased on a single word. Though carefuluse of a word may constituteliteraryallusion, R.'s efforts toestablishverbalparallelsare weakened when,forexample,a common participle(e.g., repercussus linkingMet. 2.110,3.434 and 4.783; pp. 28-9) or an emendationnot found in the manuscripttradition (e.g.,sponteat Her.18.76tiesitto Aen.4.361;p. 196) is said to relate one passage to another.R. is carefulnotto claimallusivityformany passages she cites (p. 29 n. 88), thoughshe does not explain to my satisfaction any otherrationaleforher constantcomparisonof passages sharingbut a single word. Similarly,Narcissus and Medusa show up in places that lack obvious verbal or thematicparallels. In R.'s discussionofMet.10,decapitation(orneck-breaking) seems to linkthedeath of HyacinthwithEuryalusin Aen. 9, Catullus' poetloverin 11.22,and Medusa (whichMedusa? whichtext?).PerhapsR. has a conceptualbasis forconnecting thesepassages withheromnipresentgorgon ,butshe does notlingeroveranyofthemlongenough forus tofindout. Equally important to thesubstanceofR.'s argumentabouterotic relationships in Ovid is thematterofthepoet's elegiac predecessors. R. occasionallycitesTibullan or Propertianprecedents,and insightfullypointsto thedream recountedin Propertius2.26 as one background against which the Hero and Leander epistles are staged. Propertiushad already presented,withinthe contextof drowning, a rivalry between lover and beloved forpoetic nomen(2.26.7;p. 12), and thus Hero's identityas a creator,ratherthan poetic materies, may constitute"the point at which Ovid's vision offemaleidentity unleashesitsambitiousedge" (p. 184).In general,however,R.'s treatmentof Propertiusand Tibullus is less astute.For instance,in her discussion of the Medicamina, evidence forthe natural look advocated by thetwo elegistsis problematic.Propertius1.2 foregrounds poetic artifice and complicatesits own prescriptions forunadorned 1The Amores, first composed as a five-book edition,were laterpublishedin three volumes notbefore16 BCE,theArsaround 1 BCE/CE, thoughtherevisededitionofthe Amores mayhave been published about thesame timeas theArs.See J.C.McKeown, ed.,Ovid:Amores, vol. 1 (Liverpool,1987)84-9. 334 BOOK...

Allusion to Ovid and others in Statius' Achilleid

It has become a commonplace of Statian criticism that, if Thebaid invokes Virgil as model, then Achilleid sees Statius using Ovid. Important work has been done in this field, most notably by Rosati and Hinds: Rosati has explored the relationships between Achilleid and several Ovidian texts, while Hinds has insisted on the centrality of Metamorphoses to understanding Achilleid: ‘it is an epic: a markedly Ovidian, markedly metamorphic epic’. This essay aims to extend that discussion through consideration of the differences between Statius and his Ovidian models in his handling of a number of key episodes.The most obvious connection between Ovid's works and Statius' Achilleid is the story of Achilles' rape of Deidamia, for these are the only extant classical poets to narrate the story at any length. That Statius' account actually alludes to Ovid's account in Art of Love is clear. For example, both poets use marked alliteration when describing Achilles' violence:uiribus ilia quidem uicta est, ita credere oportet:sed uoluit uinci uiribus ilia tamen.(Ars 1.699f.)

Ovid and the Moderns

The reasons for the conspicuous popularity of Ovid-his life as well as his works-at the turn of the new millennium bear investigation.... This book speaks of the new bodies assumed in the twentieth century by the poems and tales to which Ovid gave their classic form-including prominently the account of his own life, which has been hailed by many writers of our time as the archetype of exile.... I intend to suggest some of the reasons for Ovid's appeal to different writers and different generations.-from the Preface Theodore Ziolkowski approaches Ovid's Latin poetry as a comparatist, not as a classicist, and maintains that the contextualization of individual works helps place them in a larger tradition. Covering the period 1912-2002, Ovid and the Moderns deals with the reception of Ovid and of Ovid's works in literature. After beginning with a discussion of Giorgio de Chirico's Ariadne paintings of 1912 and the Hofmannsthal-Strauss opera Ariadne auf Naxos, Ziolkowski considers European literary landmarks from the High Modernism of Joyce, Kafka, Mandelstam, and Pound, by way of the mid-century exiles, to postmodernism and the century's end, when a surge of interest in Ovid was fueled by a new generation of translations. One of Ziolkowski's conclusions is that the popularity of Ovid alternates in a regular rhythm and for definable reasons with that of Virgil.

Ancient Etymologies in Ovid's "Metamorphoses": A Commented Lexicon

In this useful contribution to a subject of growing importance in contemporary classical studies, Andreas Michalopoulos has collected around 200 etymologies and etymological complexes in Ovid's Metamorphoses. These are listed with brief contextual information, evidence for the etymology from ancient grammarians, discussion of the artistic function of the wordplay, and examples of its use in other works of Ovid and in other Latin poets. The introduction sets out a conceptual framework and succinctly describes etymological techniques particularly typical of (although not unique to) Ovid. As well as adding to the corpus of etymological reference works, this study will increase appreciation both of Ovid's learning and of his wit.

Magister Amoris: The 'Roman de la Rose' and Vernacular Hermeneutics by Alastair Minnis

MLR, 98.2, 2003 455 the impact ofthe article at the end with an over-hasty and sketchy examination of other female characters. Donald Maddox concentrates his attention upon the Bel Inconnu and upon the 'Fier Baiser' theme in particular. Of special note is the exploration of the significance of the heraldic emblems contained in the text, where Maddox's persistence has brought important results. Sara Sturm-Maddox is concerned with the fortunes of the Arthurian tradition in Sicily and more specifically with Floriant et Florete, and tries to tease out the meaning ofthe end of the verse romance. The article not so far mentioned is a study by Louis Gemenne, which describes an experiment centred on the reading of Marie de France's Bisclavret by a group of mainly 16-yearold pupils in a Belgian school. This essay perhaps illustrates the strengthand weakness of the whole collection: it has its own interest, but does not relate to or genuinely invite reflection on the other contributions. The Arthurian theme suggested by the title loosely covers all the essays printed here, the individual contributions are all worthy in their differentways, but the collection remains a miscellany, lacking a truly distinctive theme which would have increased the resonances of its separate parts. University of Durham Geoffrey Bromiley Magister Amoris: The 'Roman de la Rose' and Vernacular Hermeneutics. By Alastair Minnis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. xv + 352pp. ?50. ISBN o19 -818754-8 With this book Alastair Minnis makes another substantial contribution to the study of medieval concepts of authorship and literaryhermeneutics. This detailed examination of the reception of the Roman de la Rose in the later Middle Ages situates the Rose and the diverse reactions it provoked in the context of medieval theories of language and meaning and the study of erotic and satiric literature, particularly the works of Ovid. Minnis stresses Ovid's importance as a learned poet of love, a magister amoris, whose literary oeuvre comprises seemingly contradictory elements. Works attributed to Ovid during the Middle Ages, the Amores, the Ars amatoria, the Remedia amoris, and the De vetula, as well as the Metamorphoses, variously incite the reader to erotic love, instruct him or her in how to proceed, warn against its dangers, and portray it as a moral pitfall to be avoided at all cost. The complexities and ambiguities of Ovid's love poetry stimulated a lively commentary tradition that was already well developed by the time of Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose. Minnis shows that medieval readings of the Rose must be read in the larger context of medieval literary studies in general, and in particular with reference to the reception of Ovid. As Minnis states with regard to the celebrated querelle initiated by Christine de Pizan, Jean de Meun was widely viewed as a medieval vernacular Ovid; the question was whether the Rose should be read as an art or a remedy of love. In his analysis of the Rose and the controversies that itaroused, Minnis explores the poem's unstable mix of competing discourses: the use of integumentumor decorous concealment of harsh and obscene material on the one hand, and on the other the 'naked truth' of satire, in which all is bared foran effectthat is both comic and didactic . It is the very instability and inconsistency of the Rose, a masterful and brilliant inconsistency, that accounts both forthe fascination with which it gripped its readers and forthe horror with which some of them reacted. Minnis shows that Jean's critics and his defenders alike drew on scholastic commentary traditions, differingonly in their means of applying these techniques to the Rose. Thus for some it was a bold satire, and for others a shameful treatise on seduction. Minnis's own view is that Jean's humour in the Rose is not subversive but utterly mainstream. Its comedy derives from a perspective that completely accepts the 456 Reviews dominant culture while none the less seeing and perhaps even revelling in its inter? nal tensions, paradoxes, and absurdities. Minnis points out that a paradox central to medieval education, in which Ovidian love poetry played a prominent role, was that boys were simultaneously...

Blood, Identity, and Counter-Discourse: Rabbinic Writings on Menstruation

Blood, Identity, and Counter-Discourse:Rabbinic Writings on Menstruation Ishay Rosen-Zvi Charlotte E. Fonrobert . Menstrual Purity: Rabbinic and Christian Reconstructions of Biblical Gender. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000, 326 pp. The project undertaken by Charlotte Fonrobert in this book1 is clearly innovative, breaking fresh ground in the research of rabbinic culture. Her scholarly novelty lies in the specific material that she investigates as well as in the methodological approach to it. The last decade saw the emergence of abundant writing on questions of gender and sexuality in rabbinic literature. Exploiting the contemporary methods employed in the fields of cultural research, women studies, and feminist criticism and assisted by Michel Foucault's writing on sexuality, the works of David Biale,2 Daniel Boyarin,3 Michael Satlow,4 Miriam Peskowitz,5 and others have presented a broad view of the relations between the sexes and the picture of gender that emerge from rabbinic literature. Within this framework, particular attention has been given to marriage and sexual relations, the place of women in the house of study and in the market, adultery and seduction, and so forth. The talmudic concern with the female body, however, has not yet been subject to such a comprehensive examination. Though most of the above-mentioned writers recognize the centrality of the human body in rabbinic literature,6 there has been no detailed study devoted solely to this subject. The opposite holds true of parallel research of Greek and Hellenistic literature, which long ago recognized that medical writings about female anatomy and physiology are a potential source of a cultural history of gender. The works of Aline Rousselle,7 Lesley Dean-Jones,8 Ann Ellis Hanson,9 and others have proved that this research direction is promising and fertile. These investigators introduced Greek and Hellenistic medical writing into the historical discussion of gender. They managed to prove that the Hippocratic [End Page 210] corpus, Aristotle's biological works, Galen's and Soranus's writings, and similar texts that deal with the structure and function of the female and male body are no less instructive about perceptions of sex and sexuality in the Hellenistic world than the analysis of Ovid's works or the nude paintings in Pompeii.10 Following in the footsteps of these investigators, Fonrobert seeks to examine the gynecological and physiological knowledge embodied in the laws of Niddah as a gateway to the talmudic universe of gender. In this endeavor, she complements Tirzah Meacham's critical study of the mishnaic tractate of Niddah,11 which focuses on the philology and realia of the text without analyzing its gendered context and cultural implications. Fonrobert's second novelty lies in her methodology. The works of Judith Hauptman,12 Michael Satlow, Judith Romney Wegner,13 and Tal Ilan14 are thematic, tracing an issue through various sources and strata. As a result, they engage the sources in a selective and necessarily partial manner. Fonrobert, in contrast, focuses on a relatively limited number of texts, but quotes them extensively and analyzes them rigorously and at length. This method proves to be profitable. Her detailed and extensive treatment of the material produces new insights even into texts that have drawn considerable scholarly attention (such as the story of R. Akiva and the menstruating woman in M Niddah 8:3).15 By adopting a textual orientation, Fonrobert goes beyond the analysis of contents to examine the text's language, argumentation, analogies, metaphors, and tone in order to extract their implicit picture of gender. This approach accounts for the accomplishments of this book and the insightful perceptions it offers. The Structure The book has a clear-cut structure, which is instructive of Fonrobert's methodological approach. Besides the introductory and concluding chapters, the main argument—engaging the laws of Niddah in rabbinic literature—is presented in four thematic chapters. These chapters are divided into two groups: the first part (chapters 2 and 3) concerns the object of knowledge—the female body, while the second (chapters 4 and 5) deals with the subjects holding this knowledge. Each of the two parts is structured in a similar fashion, with the opening chapter describing [End Page 211] the masculine hegemony and the succeeding...

The rhetoric of the body from Ovid to Shakespeare

This persuasive book analyses the complex, often violent connections between body and voice in Ovid's Metamorphoses and narrative, lyric and dramatic works by Petrarch, Marston and Shakespeare. Lynn Enterline describes the foundational yet often disruptive force that Ovidian rhetoric exerts on early modern poetry, particularly on representations of the self, the body and erotic life. Paying close attention to the trope of the female voice in the Metamorphoses, as well as early modern attempts at transgendered ventriloquism that are indebted to Ovid's work, she argues that Ovid's rhetoric of the body profoundly challenges Renaissance representations of authorship as well as conceptions about the difference between male and female experience. This vividly original book makes a vital contribution to the study of Ovid's presence in Renaissance literature.

The Metamorphosis of a Poet: Recent Work on Ovid

It is by now obvious that Ovidian studies have ‘arrived’, apologies are no longer issued, nor are defences launched at the beginning of books. The nineties alone have seen so far the appearance of over fifty new books on Ovid in English, French, Italian, and German, and not just on theMetamorphoses, but on theFasti, theAmoresandArs Amatoria, and the exile poetry, including the little knownIbis. Most importantly, there is a flourishing growth industry in commentaries on all of Ovid's works, with a greatly anticipated forthcoming commentary from Italy on theMetamorphosesauthored by an international team, new Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics commentaries, including a recent excellent edition onFasti4 by Elaine Fantham (with an extremely useful and much-needed section on Ovid's style), the vastly learned commentaries of J. McKeown on theAmores, among others (all seemingly getting longer and longer). The appearance of a series of excellent English translations has made Ovid’s works more widely available for teaching. A number of companion volumes on Ovid are also forthcoming. N. Holzberg's recent impressive German introduction to Ovid evidently made the author, for a while at least, a sort of celebrity in Germany, and the book has already been reissued in a second edition. The rehabilitation of later Latin epic of the first century has more than anything served to place Ovid's work within a vigorous post-Vergilian literary tradition.