- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy "The Diamond Jubilee - A Classical Celebration Album" for just £2.50. Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Metamorphoses (Oxford World's Classics) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The theme of the Metamorphoses is change and transformation, as illustrated in Graeco-Roman myth and legend. On this ostensibly unifying thread Ovid strings together a vast and kaleidoscopic sequence of brilliant narratives, in which the often paradoxical and always arbitrary fates of his human and divine characters reflect the never-ending flux and reflux of the universe itself.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The other reviewers say better than I could why the actual book is so good. I can only add that I love this Oxford edition and Mr Melville's translation. E.J. Kenney's introduction is very helpful too. It is gripping and shocking and the narrative has been really well done by the translator within the metre. I was terribly impressed and really pleased that I bought it. I was reading it as a source book for influences on Shakespeare which of course makes it fascinating but it is incredibly and unexpectedly good in its own right. That I suspect is down to the readability of the edition as well as Ovid's story telling.
My only little grumble is the really helpful and interesting index of explanatory notes at the back was not as easy to use as it might have been - it needed more spacing in places for ease of reference, so if your eyesight is not good the rather small print will be a bit trying.
My only little grumble is the really helpful and interesting index of explanatory notes at the back was not as easy to use as it might have been - it needed more spacing in places for ease of reference, so if your eyesight is not good the rather small print will be a bit trying.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ovid was ignored by classical scholars for a long time as being frivolous and just not serious enough. He has now been rehabilitated and Metamorphoses is recognised as being one of the most complex, sophisticated and problematic poems of the age of Augustus - as well as one of the wittiest and most accessible.
Too often regarded as a compendium of Greek and Roman myths, Metamorphoses should be read as a continuous poem telling the story of the world from the creation to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar - but in Ovid's own inimitable and often funny and scurrilous fashion. Along the way, he takes in almost every story ever told in the ancient world: Narcissus and Echo, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion, Medea, Venus and Adonis, the Trojan war, the foundation of Rome, Romulus and Remus.
His style is witty, urbane and sophisticated, and he plays games with every genre of literature: love poetry, epic, philosophy, Greek science.
The ostensible theme of the poem that unifies the 12 books is change, but modern scholars recognise that this too is part of the game Ovid is playing with his readers, and the debate continues over what Ovid is 'about'.
More interesting, perhaps, is the way in which he plays with our preconceptions of gender, power, status and authority - but all with the lightest of touches that never reduce the brilliant story-telling to mere polemic.
Writing after Vergil, on one level Metamorphoses is a response to and a dialogue with the Aeneid, and has sometime been read as an antidote to the supposedly pro-Augustan sympathies of Vergil. Certainly Ovid was banished from Rome by the Emperor Augustus just after the poem was published though the true reason cannot be known due to the loss of all sources relating to the the incident. However, many scholars now recognise the other subversive voices within the Aeneid itself, questioning the imperial mission of Rome and Augustus, so maybe Ovid and Vergil are not so far apart at all...
In any case, the Metamorphoses remains one of the most brilliant examples of the pure power of superb story-telling, and has inspired artists from Shakespeare to Bernini to Ted Hughes. Read it.
Too often regarded as a compendium of Greek and Roman myths, Metamorphoses should be read as a continuous poem telling the story of the world from the creation to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar - but in Ovid's own inimitable and often funny and scurrilous fashion. Along the way, he takes in almost every story ever told in the ancient world: Narcissus and Echo, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion, Medea, Venus and Adonis, the Trojan war, the foundation of Rome, Romulus and Remus.
His style is witty, urbane and sophisticated, and he plays games with every genre of literature: love poetry, epic, philosophy, Greek science.
The ostensible theme of the poem that unifies the 12 books is change, but modern scholars recognise that this too is part of the game Ovid is playing with his readers, and the debate continues over what Ovid is 'about'.
More interesting, perhaps, is the way in which he plays with our preconceptions of gender, power, status and authority - but all with the lightest of touches that never reduce the brilliant story-telling to mere polemic.
Writing after Vergil, on one level Metamorphoses is a response to and a dialogue with the Aeneid, and has sometime been read as an antidote to the supposedly pro-Augustan sympathies of Vergil. Certainly Ovid was banished from Rome by the Emperor Augustus just after the poem was published though the true reason cannot be known due to the loss of all sources relating to the the incident. However, many scholars now recognise the other subversive voices within the Aeneid itself, questioning the imperial mission of Rome and Augustus, so maybe Ovid and Vergil are not so far apart at all...
In any case, the Metamorphoses remains one of the most brilliant examples of the pure power of superb story-telling, and has inspired artists from Shakespeare to Bernini to Ted Hughes. Read it.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I really loved reading this book. I did not think I would enjoy it, but actually its a lovely book! It's outside of usual epic tradition, which has lead to discussion as to whether or not it is truly epic. In my opinion, its thoroughly epic!
Ovid was a very skilled writer, and he certainly knew how to make his mark. He likes to inject his own humour into the stories also, although maybe not funny by todays standards. The way this book is written, its fully descriptive and explanatory unlike some latin literature, it allows your imagination to be transported to the scene. Ovid takes you on a journey from the very beginning of time up until (his) present day.
He provides mythical explanation as to why hyacinths have the markings they do, and why the myrrh tree bends in the middle (read it you'll see why!).
Enjoy!
Ovid was a very skilled writer, and he certainly knew how to make his mark. He likes to inject his own humour into the stories also, although maybe not funny by todays standards. The way this book is written, its fully descriptive and explanatory unlike some latin literature, it allows your imagination to be transported to the scene. Ovid takes you on a journey from the very beginning of time up until (his) present day.
He provides mythical explanation as to why hyacinths have the markings they do, and why the myrrh tree bends in the middle (read it you'll see why!).
Enjoy!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
