The play of fictions: Studies in Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 531-835.

This study constitutes the first literary interpretation of a neglected sequence of episodes in the second book of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Met. 2. 531-835). The sequence is studied in detail as a coherent whole, and is then placed in the larger context of the poem itself. Throughout, an interest in Ovid's techniques of narrative construction informs the study. Chapter One explores in detail the embedded narrative of the crow at Met. 2. 549-95. The crow's fascination with language and story-telling is documented, and it is suggested that this reflects Ovid's own professional interest in story-telling. I investigate the literary models of the crow's three stories and trace the patterns which link her stories thematically. Chapter Two examines the account of the raven's metamorphosis in which Ovid embeds the crow's narrative. I analyse the relationship between the embedded narrative and the embedding narrative and suggest that the poet's treatment of the raven's metamorphosis (in punishment for tale-bearing) functions as a sophisticated reinterpretation of the crow's story. Chapter Three considers Ovid's exploration of the narrative role of prophecy in the story of Chiron's daughter Ocyroe. In particular, I examine the function of word-play in this episode. Chiron's daughter is the first mortal prophet we meet in the Metamorphoses; she offers a melancholy paradigm for the place of the vates, both prophet and poet, in the world. It is suggested that Ocyroe's loss of the faculty of speech is a punishment for uttering prophecies. Chapter Four examines the poet's treatment of language and story-telling in the episodes of Battus and Aglauros, the stories which conclude this thematically related sequence. Both characters are prompted to speech by avarice; in both instances, however, the poet denies them speech in his treatment of their stories. In an Epilogue, I consider some of the broader implications of Ovid's interest in language and narrative. It is suggested that Ovid's interest in the appropriate use of speech may reflect, and reflect on, political developments under the institution of the principate, viz., the imperial controls encroaching upon all modes of discourse.Ph.D.Classical literatureLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128223/2/8821595.pd