Ovid: Fasti Book IV: 4 (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) - Softcover

Fantham

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521449960 ISBN 13: 9780521449960

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Book IV of the Fasti, Ovid's celebration of the Roman calendar and its associated legends, is the book of April and honours the festivals of Venus, Cybele, Ceres, and their cult, as well as the traditional date of the foundation of Rome and many religious and civic anniversaries. Elaine Fantham accompanies her commentary with a revised text and an extended introduction. Besides including surveys of language, style, versification, and textual transmission, the introduction looks at the shifting generic traditions of Greek and Roman elegy, and situates Ovid's composite poem in its Augustan literary and historical context. Other sections explain the recurring religious, astronomical and dynastic material of the Fasti. It has been a particular concern to relate features of Book IV to the other books of the Fasti and to Ovid's other elegiac works, and the Metamorphoses.

About this title

Review:

' ... a breakthrough in the study of classics ... it will secure a place in every undergraduate curriculum of Roman history.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review

About the Author:

Ovid (43 BC - AD 18) was a Roman writer who mastered a wide range of literary forms from elegies of nostalgia and love to 'collective' narratives relating disconnected stories, such as Metamorphoses. He died in exile by the Black Sea. Ovid's influence has extended through Chaucer's age to Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare, and to poets such as Ted Hughes in the twentieth century.

Anthony Boyle is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is the editor of the classical literary journal Ramus and his publications include Ancient Pastoral, The Imperial Muse and Roman Literature and Ideology.

Roger Woodard is Associate Professor of Classics at UCLA. His publications include Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0521449960
• ISBN 13: 9780521449960
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304