Metamorphic Readings : Transformation, Language, and Gender in the Interpretation of Ovid's Metamorphoses

Ovid closed his 15-book epic of transformation with the metamorphosis of the poet into his work and his work into its own reception, summed up in the final word: uiuam (‘I shall live’). The prophecy has been self-fulfilling, in that the Metamorphoses has entertained readers and inspired artists in different media for two millennia since the poet’s death in AD 17. Loved for its vast repository of mythic material as well as its sophisticated manipulation of story-telling, the poem can be, and is, appreciated on many different levels and by audiences of very different backgrounds and educational experiences, whether it is for the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe or the endless but endlessly fascinating debate over the generic status of this epic which breaks all the rules and yet somehow must be included in any canon of Roman epics.The volume began life in a 2016 international meeting of Metamorphoses scholars in Stockholm, funded by the Swedish Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities, in conjunction with the publication of Ingvar Björkeson’s new translation of the huge poem into Swedish. It is designed not as a handbook to the poem or a comprehensive introduction to the critical debates surrounding it, but as a collection of original scholarly articles addressing issues in the poem, articles which are united by interest in metamorphosis of and in language, gender, and theme. While all contributions are written for scholars, they seek also to be accessible to undergraduate students and to non-specialists (all Latin and Greek is translated)