The Metamorphoses - Softcover

Ovid

4.09

71,187 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451622170 ISBN 13: 9780451622174

Publisher: Signet, 1960

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Ovid's deliciously clever and exuberant epic, now in a gorgeous new clothbound edition designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectable editions are bound in high-quality, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.

Ovid's sensuous and witty poetry brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation - often as a result of love or lust - where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy. Erudite but light-hearted, dramatic yet playful, theMetamorphoses has influenced writers and artists throughout the centuries from Shakespeare and Titian to Picasso and Ted Hughes.

Ovid (43BC-18AD) was born at Sulmo (Sulmona) in central Italy. Coming from a wealthy Roman family and seemingly destined for a career in politics, he held minor official posts before leaving public service to write, becoming the most distinguished poet of his time. His works, all published in Penguin Classics, include Amores, a collection of short love poems; Heroides, verse-letters written by mythological heroines to their lovers; Ars Amatoria, a satirical handbook on love; and Metamorphoses, his epic work that has inspired countless writers and artists through the ages.

David Raeburn is a lecturer in Classics at Oxford, and has also translated Sophocles' Electra and Other Plays for Penguin Classics.

Denis Feeney is Professor of Classics at Princeton.

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Review:

David Horovitch's richly enunciated delivery is a superb vehicle for the classical style, with its elevated diction and its elaborate rhetorical and poetic figures. Ovid poses a special challenge, and only a reader with expert pacing, matched with a sensitivity to nuances of tone and language, could deliver this text to its full impact. This Ovid is a delight. Horovitch expresses both Ovid's elegance and his lightness of touch. A word like 'nectar' drips with honeyed sweetness, and even 'water' sounds multisyllabic. Ovid's tales of change and transformation 'Actaeon into a stag, Zeus into a bull, the whole of reality in a constant state of metamorphosis' offer as enduring a vision as any in literature. Horovitch has a great voice for the classics. --D.A.W., AudioFile

I hadn't realised before what a comprehensive collection of stories it contains: Greek and Roman myths, but also Roman history up to the time of Julius Caesar. One story leads to another like Chinese puzzle balls, some tragic, some erotic, some satirical. No wonder it has been influential ever since it was completed in AD8. David Horovitch's warm, trenchant voice is perfect for Johnston's graceful and natural-sounding lines. --Christina Hardyment, The Times

About the Author:

Ovid (43 BCE-18 CE) was born at Sulmo (modern Sulmona) in central Italy. Coming from a wealthy Roman family and seemingly destined for a career in politics, he held minor official posts before leaving public service to write, becoming the most distinguished poet of his time. His works, all published by Penguin Classics, include Amores, a collection of short love poems; Heroides, verse-letters written by mythological heroines to their lovers; Ars Amatoria, a satirical handbook on love; and Metamorphoses, his epic work that has inspired countless writers and artists through the ages. David Raeburn (translator) is a lecturer in Classics at Oxford, and has also translated Sophocles' Electra and Other Plays for Penguin Classics. Denis Feeney (introducer) is a professor of Classics at Princeton. Coralie Bickford-Smith (cover illustrator) is an award-winning designer at Penguin Books (U.K.), where she has created several highly acclaimed series designs. She studied typography at Reading University and lives in London.

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