In breathtaking succession, the fast-paced narrative takes his readers from the initial creation myths to the gardens of Pomona, from the wilful intrusion of Amor into his epic narrative in the Apollo and Daphne episode to the illstarred marriage feast of Pirithous and Hippodame (ending in an all out brawl, mass-slaughter, and a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ scene between two centaurs), from the Argonauts’ voyage to Colchis to Orpheus’ underworld descent (to win back his beloved Eurydice from the realms of the dead), from the charming rustic couple Philemon and Baucis to the philosopher Pythagoras expounding on nature and history, from the creative destruction of Greek cultural centres such as Thebes in the early books to the rise of Rome and the apotheosis of the Caesars at the end. Aristotelian principles of narrative unity and ‘classical’ plotting have clearly fallen by the wayside. 11 On varietas (‘variety’) in Latin literature more generally see now Fitzgerald (2016).ġ In the Metamorphoses, Ovid parades a truly dazzling array of mythological and (as the epic progresses) historical matter before his audience.
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