LATN3601 Ovid’s Metamorphoses Student ID: 460386050 Word Count: 1496 How does Ovid’s narrative technique contribute to the poem’s thematic concerns? ‘This elusive poet shrewdly avoids the Scylla of trying to be an epic poet in the Vergilian sense of the word and the Charybdis of making parody’ Due, O. S. Changing Forms. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1974. Print. pp. 81 The self-reflexivity of the Metamorphoses is such that the poem is a piece of writing predominantly about writing itself, as well as the creative and poetic traditions; this adoption of poetic mastery as a means of expressing contextual concerns and tensions is related in Ovid’s manipulation of narrative structure and technique to achieve meaning. Hence, important dialogues on the relationships between metamorphosis and stability, seriousness and humour, illusion and history, and liberation and imprisonment are enhanced by Ovid’s unique approach to the conventions of language. Before anything else, the Metamorphoses is a poem inherently concerned with writing and the creative process, and Ovid’s self conscious and varying narrative technique lends itself to commenting on the text’s primary tension between metamorphosis and continuity. Barchiesi suggested that, while the Odyssey was ‘mostly narrative’ Barchiesi, A. (2002) ‘Narrative technique and narratology in the Metamorphoses’, in Hardie, P. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Ovid:. Cambridge University Press, pp. 181 , Ovid’s works are contrarily mostly about narrative. Ibid. Hence, the narrative structure, particularly in Book VIII, is of high strategic significance; the pseudo-epic undertones of the Calydonian boar-hunt are followed directly by the elegiac elements of Althaea’s maternal despair, expressed in fast-paced dactyls, ei mihi! quo rapior? fratres, ignoscite matri! (8.491) The transformation from elegy to epic traverses the entire Metamorphoses from the opening lines, immediately laying down the thematic concern of change: in nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illa) As Knox observes, Ovid has cleverly placed a parenthesis at the exact point in the second line when the reader would have noted not the metre of an elegiac couplet, but that of dactylic hexameter. Knox, Peter E. Ovid's Metamorphoses And The Traditions Of Augustan Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1986. Print. It is important to note that, while Ovid drew from elements of his literary predecessors, including Virgil and Callimachus, it is primarily his unique approach to narrative and linguistic presentation which declare his independence. Due Due, pp. 144 has argued that Virgilian expressions are often used by Ovid either accompanied by a different context or meaning; thus, Virgil’s coining of both Dido and Amata as furibunda Virgil, Aeneid 4.646 is transferred by Ovid instead to Scylla, which, he suggests, outlines their difference in character yet similitude in circumstance. The self-reflexivity of the narrative technique of Book VIII is manifested in the changing role undergone by characters between actor and narrator; Barchiesi observes that Ovid is the only epic poet displaying such a ‘live approach to literary discourse’ Barchiesi, pp. 186 by having Ovid intervene in the narrative through a ‘que Ovidianum’, reminding us of his omniscient presence, ‘poenarum’ que ‘deae triplices, furialibus,’ inquit (8. 481) Knox and Williams in Politics and Narrative Williams, G. D. (2009) The Metamorphoses: Politics and Narrative, in A Companion to Ovid (ed P. E. Knox), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. found that the rapidly progressing Augustan frame is constantly disrupted by Ovid’s chaotic teleological narrative, henceforth transforming his self-proclaimed carmen perpetuum (1.4) into one less continuous in its erraticism. Augustus’ stable regime was in turn scattered with literary regressions and instabilities, suggesting the resonance of creative continuity brought to life by Ovid’s narrative technique. There is much to be said about the political context surrounding Ovid’s literary narrative, and the poet’s corresponding response to the Augustan regime via literary technique. Appealing to ‘notions of continuity, stability, fixity - the urbs aeterna,’ Hardie, Philip R. Augustan Poetry And The Irrational. Print. pp. 223 Augustus represented a mediation between the discordance of the past and the changing present, inherently reflected in Ovid’s ambiguous treatment of him. Williams makes a striking commentary on the internal ambiguity present in Augustus himself, committed both to restoring Rome to her former glory, and introducing new and radical change. Williams, pp. 2 It is thus that Ovid writes ‘not against or for but about Augustus.’ Feeney (1992) pp.6 It is primarily through the use of parallels and epic subversion that the foundations of the Augustan authority is explored. The climactic pseudo-epic episode of Book VIII, Meleager and the Calydonian boar, is a key tale in understanding Ovid’s use of narrative technique in order to experiment with literary genre. In Changing Forms, Due argues that Ovid’s credibility as a conscious writer constructing a self-conscious text is enhanced by the corresponding transitions between the ‘epic’ boar-hunting and Althaea’s ‘tragic’ dilemma. Due, pp. 79 Otis further justifies this thematic combination, arguing that it ‘paves the way for the Roman denouement of the whole poem.’ Otis, Brooks. Ovid As An Epic Poet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Print. The mighty heroes of the boar-hunt, immortalised in Homer’s epics, are belittled by Ovid’s emphasis on the feeble weaponry and trivial obstacles which halt them in their heroic cause. According to Knox, much of Ovid’s genre subversion stems from the concept of Kreuzung der Gattungen, Kroll, Wilhelm. Lateinische Philologie. [Place of publication not identified]: Saraswati Press, 2012. Print. whereby genre conventions are upheld in order to emphasise when they are broken. Knox, pp. 2 Watkins notes the significance of adding Nestor to the catalogue of heroes, arguing that Ovid’s purpose was merely to present a hero unheroically. Watkins, O. D. "Ovid, "Metamorphoses", 8, 365-8."Latomus 42.1 (1983): 135-38. Web. pp. 1 Notorious in the Iliad for telling stories of his heroic exploits in his youth, Nestor’s emasculation is heightened by the means of escape which he adopts: ab hasta arboris insiluit, quae stabat proxima, ramis despexitque, loco tutus, quem fugerat, hostem (8.366-8) Nestor’s comical ‘pole-vault’ is ‘a little undignified for a great hero,’ Ovidius Naso, Publius and Adrian Swayne Hollis. Metamorphoses. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Print. with the boar as hostem delayed in the sentence in order to focus the narrative on the hero’s escape. History plays an important role in the poem; with the scope of Ovid’s undertaking, there are no material boundaries limiting the poet in his use of memory and the past, especially in Book VIII. Barchiesi notes that, unlike in the Aeneid, in which references to modern Rome can only be made through prophecy and foreshadowing, the use of flashbacks in the Metamorphoses is not bound by ‘structural economy,’ as ‘the whole of universal history is potentially material for internal prolepsis or analepsis.’ Barchiesi, pp. 183 Hence, allusions made by Ovid, which place his characters in the scope of literary tradition, allow him to explore the predominant significance of the creative process using notorious myths as a backdrop. The Augustan age itself was defined by change and variety, being a transition from Republic to Empire, meaning that Ovid had greater control over his relationship to the past. Knox, pp. 2 As a result, the poet had an array of predecessors whose customs and traditions he drew on, appropriately presenting an amalgamation of literary influence through varying accounts. Propertius’ Tarpeia, which itself drew from Callimachus’ Aetia was one of Ovid’s main narrative influences in Scylla and Minos (8.6-151). The extended, formal opening made by Ovid, introducing a regia turris (8.14), allows him to emphasise the historical placement of the mythological tale, closely mirroring Propertius. Tissol has suggested that the indirection and indecision of Scylla’s resolve recalls the unstable narrative scheme of Propertius; when she reaches her decision, it is done with an artificial rhetoric which simultaneously preserves her human character, Tissol, Garth. The Face Of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Print. pp. 143 coepta placent, et stat sententia tradere mecum / dotalem patriam (8.67-68). It is arguably the fact that Scylla’s change of mind occurs within one monologue which provides the appearance of artificiality. The narrative is centralised on Scylla’s monologue, compressing the consequences of her decisions within six lines (8.84-89), with the delayal of suum in line 86 focusing the narrative on Scylla. Identity is intermingled as Nisus appears only after having been transformed into a sea eagle, modo factus erat fulvis haliaeetus alis, further distorting the narrative’s structure. The thematic concern of imprisonment, be it through metamorphosis, incarceration or the infamous amore The term captus amore appears several times in some form throughout the Metamorphoses; see 6.465, 8.124, 8.435, 9.511, 13.762, 14.29. . Writing and creative tradition once again function as a form of liberty and expression throughout the Metamorphoses. Hence, while Byblis of Book IX attempts to adopt a male mode of writing through the centralised letter, emphasised more ‘as a piece of writing than as one of tragedy,’ Ovid, George Lyman Kittredge, and Thornton Jenkins. The Metamorphoses Of Ovid. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1925. Print. Daedalus instead frees himself through the artistic crafting of wings: geminas opifex libravit in alas ipse suum corpus motaque pependit in aura (8. 201-2) The syntax of line 201 imitates the image of the opifex balanced between the geminas...alas, reflecting Ovid’s build-up towards the portrayal of Daedalus as a skilled and dutiful father. In The Face of Nature, Tissol argues that the jarring discovery of Daedalus’ following envy towards Perdix is intentionally delayed and displaced by Ovid, in order to allow us to revise Perdix’s role and Daedalus’ identity in the poem. Tissol, pp. 97 Once again, Ovid’s subversion of the epic genre results in a minimised, if not altogether absent Bömer, Franz. P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1986. Print. account of Icarus’ fall itself; despite it being a well-known myth before the time of Ovid, the poet has used his liberal authority as a creator in order to influence our perspectives while explicitly foreshadowing Icarus’ fall through oscula...non iterum repetenda (8.211-12) and damnosas...artes (8.215). Barchiesi would even argue that Ovid has as much authority over his material as Virgil does in the Aeneid, but because of the very scope of the Metamorphoses, which is in itself indefinite, Ovid is ‘not accountable for his choices’. Barchiesi, pp. 184 It is therefore evident that Ovid, the most daring poet of his time, encouraged significant dialogue on important thematic concerns, during a time of both old-fashioned tradition and unrelented change. The poet has proven, in the self-consciousness of his work, that both poetry and the world essentially come down to language, narrative and creation. Bibliography Bömer, Franz. P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1986. Print. Due, O. S. Changing Forms. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1974. Print. Hardie, Philip R. Augustan Poetry And The Irrational. Print. Knox, Peter E. Ovid's Metamorphoses And The Traditions Of Augustan Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1986. Print. Kroll, Wilhelm. Lateinische Philologie. [Place of publication not identified]: Saraswati Press, 2012. Print. Newlands, Carole and Garth Tissol. "The Face Of Nature: Wit, Narrative, And Cosmic Origins In Ovid's "Metamorphoses"". The Classical World 93.1 (1999): 110. Web. Otis, Brooks. Ovid As An Epic Poet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Print. Ovid, and Garth Tissol. Ovid. Print. Ovid, George Lyman Kittredge, and Thornton Jenkins. The Metamorphoses Of Ovid. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1925. Print. Ovidius Naso, Publius and Adrian Swayne Hollis. Metamorphoses. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Print. Tissol, Garth. The Face Of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Print. 8