Ovid (eBook)

Katharina Volk is Associate Professor of Classics at Columbia University. She is the author of The Poetics of Latin Didactic: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius (2002) and Manilius and his Intellectual Background (2009) and the editor of Seeing Seneca Whole: Perspectives on Philosophy, Poetry and Politics (with Gareth D. Williams, 2006), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Vergil's Eclogues (2008), and Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Vergil's Georgics (2008).

List of Figures viii

Preface ix

Abbreviations for Ovid's Works xi

Introduction 1

1 Work 6

2 Life 20

3 Elegy 35

4 Myth 50

5 Art 65

6 Women 81

7 Rome 95

8 Reception 110

Further Reading 128

Notes 141

Ovidian Passages Cited 142

Index 145

"The past few years have seen several new translations of
[Ovid's] work appear and a few acute scholarly studies, too.
Among the more accessible of the latter category is Katharina
Volk's introduction to Ovid...Volk, a professor of
classics at Columbia and the new editor of The Transactions of the
American Philological Association,is about as high a star in the
American academic firmament as one might find. Her tone is devoid
of the jargon and pretense by which many an Ovidian monograph is
marred. After concise initial chapters on the poet's work and
life, we find sensible discussions on elegy, women, and Rome, as
well as a selective survey of Ovid's subsequent reception in
Western art and literature." (Sewanee Review,
2012)

" ...the book is truly first-class. It will, I believe, become
invaluable for any course in which Ovid is a central component..."
(BMCR, 6 February 2012)

"Katharina Volk's Ovid is a wonderfully deft and spirited
introduction to the whole of the poet's oeuvre, covering a
remarkable amount of ground in just under 150 pages ." (Times
Literary Supplement, 16 September 2011)

"That quibble aside, this is an admirable book, suitable as both
an up-to-date introduction for tyros and as a refreshing overview
of matters Ovidian for advanced scholars." (Acta Classica,1
December 2011)



"Katharina Volk's splendid new introduction to the
poetry of Ovid is at once innovative, expert and highly accessible,
bringing triumphantly to life the most entertaining poet of the
Romans."

Stephen Harrison, University of Oxford

"Volk's vivid and concise analysis is a tour de force, doing full
justice to Ovid's extraordinary artistry and matching the rainbow
diversity of his many genres"

Elaine Fantham, Princeton University