Ovid's Ars Amatoria has met with astonishingly varied fortunes down the centuries. Ten years after publication the book became a reason, or more probably a pretext, for the author's banishment from Rome. It was removed from public libraries, and more recently the poem suffered a virtual embargo in schools and universities. This is the first detailed English commentary on any part of the poem. Examined afresh, it emerges as the wittiest of Ovid's love poems, turning upside down the attitudes and conventions of orthodox love elegy. The work is full of psychological insight and is richly embroidered with details of contemporary Roman social and political life. This new paperback edition intends to bring out the spirit of provocative frivolity which was undeniably meant to irritate Roman traditionalists. The text of Kenney's Oxford Classical Text is reproduced and supplemented with a full introduction to the style and historical background the poem, as well as with a full commentary and appendices.
Ovid's Ars Amatoria has met with astonishingly varied fortunes down the centuries. Ten years after publication the book became a reason, or more probably a pretext, for the author's banishment from Rome. It was removed from public libraries, and more recently the poem suffered a virtual embargo in schools and universities. This is the first detailed English commentary on any part of the poem. Examined afresh, it emerges as the wittiest of Ovid's love poems, turning upside down the attitudes and conventions of orthodox love elegy. The work is full of psychological insight and is richly embroidered with details of contemporary Roman social and political life. This new paperback edition intends to bring out the spirit of provocative frivolity which was undeniably meant to irritate Roman traditionalists. The text of Kenney's Oxford Classical Text is reproduced and supplemented with a full introduction to the style and historical background the poem, as well as with a full commentary and appendices.
Composition of the "Ars Amatoria"; the "Ars", Ovid's exile, and the poet's intentions; the didactic tradition; Sigla; Ars Amatoria 1; commentary. Appendices: the cronology of Ovid's earlier works and the "ars"; "me Venus artificem tenero praefecit amori"; another "propempticon" for Gaius: antipater of Thesselonica"; Busiris and Phalaris in Callimachus' "Aetia"; "epithalamion of Achilles and Deidamia", lines 10-30.
"'Teachers and students alike will be delighted with the effectiveness with which Hollis places the Ars Amatoria within its proper cultural milieu.' Classical Journal" "'This is a most valuable ... aid to students of [Ovid's] erotic poems.' Hermathena" "'contains a clear and up-to-date introduction and an intelligent, even humorous commentary in the best traditions of English literary criticism' Arctos"
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