Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more

Recommended product

Popular links

Popular links


Transformations of Ovid in Late Antiquity

Transformations of Ovid in Late Antiquity

Transformations of Ovid in Late Antiquity

Ian Fielding, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
November 2017
Available
Hardback
9781107178434
$127.00
USD
Hardback
USD
eBook

    Ovid could be considered the original poet of late antiquity. In his exile poetry, he depicts a world in which Rome has become a distant memory, a community accessible only through his imagination. This, Ovid claimed, was a transformation as remarkable as any he had recounted in his Metamorphoses. Ian Fielding's book shows how late antique Latin poets referred to Ovid's experiences of isolation and estrangement as they reflected on the profound social and cultural transformations taking place in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries AD. There are detailed new readings of texts by major figures such as Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, Boethius and Venantius Fortunatus. For these authors, Fielding emphasizes, Ovid was not simply a stylistic model, but an important intellectual presence. Ovid's fortunes in late antiquity reveal that poetry, far from declining into irrelevance, remained a powerful mode of expression in this fascinating period.

    • Provides the first comprehensive study of Ovid's reception in late antiquity, addressing a significant gap in existing scholarship on Ovid's afterlife
    • Presents detailed analysis of a range of important late antique authors from Gaul, Spain, Italy and Africa over a period of two centuries, situating them in their literary and historical contexts
    • Highlights the dynamism and sophistication of late Latin poetry

    Reviews & endorsements

    '… excellent book on Ovid’s reception in late antiquity … illustrates how productive the reuse of classical models could be in the period … intelligent, lucid, and well-produced monograph brings late Latin poetry alive.' Scott McGill, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

    '… excellent book on the reception of Ovid … Fielding is able to present not only Ovid's powerful legacy, but also, and perhaps more importantly, draw needed attention to the great intellectual potential in reassessing the late antique Latin poets.' Stephen M. Kershner, The Classical Journal-Online

    See more reviews

    Product details

    November 2017
    Hardback
    9781107178434
    266 pages
    235 × 157 × 16 mm
    0.57kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction: a poet between two worlds
    • 1. Ovid Recalled in the Poetic Correspondence of Ausonius and Paulinus of Nola
    • 2. Ovid and the Transformation of the Late Roman World of Rutilius Namatianus
    • 3. The Poet and the Vandal Prince: Ovidian Rhetoric in Dracontius' Satisfactio
    • 4. The Remedies of Elegy in Ovid, Boethius and Maximianus
    • 5. The Ovidian Heroine of Venantius Fortunatus, Appendix 1
    • Conclusion: Ovid's Late Antiquity.
      Author
    • Ian Fielding , University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

      Ian Fielding is Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has published a number of articles on Latin poetry in late antiquity and on classical receptions in Naples and Campania.