Ovid's Homer: Authority, Repetition, Reception

by Barbara Weiden Boyd

Overview

Ovid's Homer examines the Latin poet's engagement with the Homeric poems throughout his career. Boyd offers detailed analysis of Ovid's reading and reinterpretation of a range of Homeric episodes and characters from both epics, and demonstrates the pervasive presence of Homer in Ovid's work. The resulting intertextuality, articulated as a poetics of paternity or a poetics of desire, is particularly marked in scenes that have a history of scholiastic interest or critical intervention; Ovid repeatedly asserts his mastery as Homeric reader and critic through his creative response to alternative readings, and in the process renews Homeric narrative for a sophisticated Roman readership. Boyd offers new insight into the dynamics of a literary tradition, illuminating a previously underappreciated aspect of Ovidian intertextuality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190680060
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/07/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	286
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Barbara Weiden Boyd is Henry Winkley Professor of Latin and Greek at Bowdoin College. She is the author of Ovid's Literary Loves: Influence and Innovation in the Amores, and editor of Brill's Companion to Ovid and Approaches to Teaching the Works of Ovid and the Ovidian Tradition.

Table of Contents

Ovid's Homer: Authority, Repetition, and Reception TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x TEXTS AND ABBREVIATIONS x INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 1 - Starting From Homer 15 Chapter 2 - Seeing Double: Ovid's Diomedes 58 Chapter 3 - Fathers And Sons, Part One: A Success(ion) Story 104 Chapter 4 - Fathers And Sons, Part Two: Paternity As Paradigm 150 Chapter 5 - Paternity Tests 207 Chapter 6 - Poetic Daughters 234 Chapter 7 - Homer In Love 254 Chapter 8 - Homeric Desires 300 CHAPTER 9 - Homer's Gods in Rome 334 bibliography 368 INDEX LOCORUM x GENERAL INDEX x

Editorial Reviews

"This valuable new book explores Ovid's career-long engagement with Homer's poetry in a series of learned and sensitive close readings from the whole range of Ovid's poetic output ... This review cannot do justice to the many insightful interpretive readings of the individual passages which form the chapters of this book ... The accessibility of the book is greatly assisted by translations of all Latin and Greek passages and summaries of the relevant Homeric episodes." — Sara Myers, Latomus

"[The book] is a pleasure to read, written in a clear, well-chosen and unpretentious language. It displays Boyd's secure command of Greek and Latin literature and of a vast amount of scholarship. It is a volume of impressive depth, stimulating insight, fine interpretive skills and persuasive argument, presented in an admirably lucid manner. Boyd is to be warmly congratulated for this solid contribution to the study of Ovid (and Homer). All serious students of Ovid's poetry are strongly encouraged to read and engage with this book." — Andreas N. Michalopoulos, Exemplaria classica

"Advanced undergraduates in Classics as well as professional scholars without Greek or Latin will be able to read this book with profit. Without question, however, scholars of Latin poetry are the primary audience, and those interested in the reception of Homer will find much of interest." — Samuel J. Huskey, Classical World

"This is an absorbing and a testing read, but often exhilarating ... For those who love Ovid (or indeed Homer) this is definitely recommended." — Colin McDonald, Classics for All

"The subtlety and complexity of Boyd's arguments must be read in their entirety for complete appreciation of this important work. The monograph is erudite, yet eminently readable." — Classical Journal-Online

"This innovative study offers the first scholarly investigation specifically devoted to Ovid's reception of the Homeric poems across the breadth of his Latin poetry - from Ovid's earliest amatory poems through the erotodidactic corpus into the works of his maturity, the Metamorphoses and Fasti, all the way to the exile poetry. The volume will be of interest to students not only of Homer and Ovid, but also of the reception of classical mythology and of the sophisticated artistic and critical traditions their works inform." —Alison Keith, University of Toronto

"Surprisingly, this is the first book to tackle comprehensively the presence of Homeric poetry in the works of Ovid. The very conception of the topic is a major strength. Barbara Boyd, one of our best Ovidian critics, has complete control of the texts, and she brilliantly deploys her fine interpretive skills in examining the reception of Homer in Ovid." —Richard F. Thomas, Harvard University

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