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Columbia Encyclopedia entry: Ovid

Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)ŏv'ĭd, 43 B.C.–A.D. 18, Latin poet, b. Sulmo (present-day Sulmona), in the Apennines. Although trained for the law, he preferred the company of the literary coterie at Rome. He enjoyed early and widespread fame as a poet and was known to the emperor Augustus. In A.D. 8, for no known reason, he was abruptly exiled to Tomis, a Black Sea outpost, S of the Danube, where he later died. The poems of Ovid fall into three groups—erotic poems, mythological poems, and poems of exile. His verse, with the exception of the Metamorphoses and a fragment (Halieutica), is in elegiacs, which are of unmatched perfection. The love poems include Amores [loves], 49 short poems, many of which extol the charms of the poet's mistress Corinna, probably a synthesis of several women; Epistulae heroidum [letters from heroines], an imaginary series written by ancient heroines to their absent lovers; Ars amatoria [art of love], didactic, in three books, with complete instructions on how to acquire and keep a lover. In the mythological category is the Metamorphoses, a masterpiece and perhaps Ovid's greatest work. Written in hexameters, it is a collection of myths concerned with miraculous transformations linked together with such consummate skill that the whole is artistically harmonious. The Fasti, also a mythological poem, contains six books on the days of the year from January to June, giving the myths, legends, and notable events called to mind on each day. As a source for religious antiquities, it is especially valuable. The poems of exile include Tristia [sorrows], five books of short poems, conveying the poet's despair in his first five years of exile and his supplications for mercy, and the Epistulae ex Ponto [letters from the Black Sea], in four books, addressed to friends in Rome, showing somewhat abated poetic power. Ovid wrote poetry to give pleasure; no other Latin poet wrote so naturally in verse or with such sustained wit. Unsurpassed as a storyteller, he also related the complexities of romantic involvements with verve and deft characterization. A major influence in European literature, Ovid was also a primary source of inspiration for the artists of the Renaissance and the baroque. The Metamorphoses was translated during this period by A. Golding (1567), George Sandys (1632), and John Dryden (1700).

See modern verse translations by R. Humphries (1955, 1958), L. R. Lind (1975), and A. D. Melville (1989); studies by L. P. Wilkinson (1955, 1962), H. F. Fränkel (1945, repr. 1969), B. Otis (1966, repr. 1971), J. W. Binns, ed. (1973), R. Syme (1978), D. R. Slavitt (1990).

Wikipedia search results for: Ovid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation. He is considered a master of the elegiac couplet, and is traditionally ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonic poets of Latin literature. His poetry, much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, decisively influenced European art and literature. The Elegiac couplet is the meter of most of Ovid's poems: the Amores — Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris — are didactic long poems; the Fasti, about the Roman calendar; the...more »

Columbia Encyclopedia search results: Ovid

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courtly love
Courtly love, philosophy of love and code of lovemaking that flourished in France and England during the Middle Ages. Although its origins are obscure, it probably derived from the works of Ov...
Golding, Arthur
Golding, Arthur, c.1536–c.1605, English translator. He translated many Latin classics, including Caesar's Gallic War and Ovid's Metamorphoses. A Calvinist, Golding tried to infuse the Metamorp...
Klinger, Max
Klinger, Max, 1857–1920, German painter, sculptor, and etcher. Before 1886 he produced cycles of original and somewhat morbidly imaginative etchings, such as Deliverances of Sacrificial Victim...
centaur
Centaur, in Greek mythology, creature, half man and half horse. The centaurs were fathered by Ixion or by Centaurus, who was Ixion's son. Followers of Dionysus, they were uncouth and savage, b...
Celtes, Conradus Protucius
Celtes, Conradus Protucius, pseud. of Konrad Pickel, 1459–1508, German scholar and humanist. He traveled widely, lectured at several universities, became librarian to Maximilian I, and founded...
Constanţa
Constanţa, city (1990 pop. 355,402), SE Romania, on the Black Sea. It is the administrative center of Dobruja and a major railroad junction and industrial city, but its chief importance derive...
Cousin, Jean
Cousin, Jean, c.1490–c.1560, celebrated French painter, designer, and sculptor. To him have been attributed the designs for the windows of various churches of Sens and Paris and a painting, Ev...
Gregory, Horace
Gregory, Horace, 1898–1982, American poet and critic, b. Milwaukee, Wis., grad. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1923. His poetry is noted for its dramatic structure and penetrating insights into the harsh...
Maillol, Aristide
Maillol, Aristide, 1861–1944, French sculptor, woodcut artist, and painter. At first a painter, Maillol studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and then allied himself with the Nabis. In h...
Sandys, George
Sandys, George, 1578–1644, English poet and traveler, b. Yorkshire, son of Archbishop Edwin Sandys. He was educated at Oxford and in 1610 began an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East, ...

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