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The Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics)
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Bringing together a series of ingeniously linked myths and legends, Ovid's deliciously witty and poignant Metamorphoses describes a magical world in which men and women are transformed - often by love - into flowers, trees, animals, stones and stars. First published in 1567, this landmark translation by Arthur Golding was the first major English edition of the epic, which includes such tales as the legend of Narcissus; the parable of Icarus; and the passion held by the witch-queen Circe for the great Aeneas. A compelling adaptation that used imagery familiar to English sixteenth-century society, it powerfully influenced Spenser, Shakespeare and the character of Elizabethan literature.
About the Author
Ovid (43 BC - AD 18) was a Roman poet who experimented in a variety of different forms from love elegies to mock didactic verse. He died in exile.
Arthur Golding (c.1565 - c.1605) was a translator of Latin and French verse, the most significant of which was The Metamorphoses.
Madeleine Forey is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
Translated by Arthur Golding Edited with an introduction and notes by Madeleine Forey
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The classics were the raw material of the English Renaissance; to write in the sixteenth century meant to engage in dialogue with the great writers of ancient Greece and Rome. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The classics were the raw material of the English Renaissance; to write in the sixteenth century meant to engage in dialogue with the great writers of ancient Greece and Rome. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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This is Ovid Englished by Golding (otherwise known as Shakespeare's Ovid as it might have been the version of the Metamorphoses that he read,although he probably read the latin original too). Published in 1587 this had a huge impact on Renaissance literature and it's easy to see why. Managing to walk the fine line between Ovid's latin original and a translation which is politically and religiously acceptable in C16th England, this tells nothing less than the story of the (Graeco-Roman) world from the original chaos to the apotheosis of Augustus.
In robust rhyming fourteeners Golding re-tells the most famous Greek myths: Narcissus and Echo, Daphne and Apollo, the rape of Persephone, Pygmalion, Orpheus etc etc. But this is more than a collection of ancient stories; this is a poetic text in its own right which is, by turn, funny, tragic, warm and chilling. Amazingly Golding manages to capture something of Ovid's own wit and playfulness while bedding his own version down within the world of Renaissance England.
If you haven't experienced Ovid before then I would recommend a more traditional translation like David Raeburn's one for Penguin or the accurate by less elegant Loeb edition. But if you know the original, then this is a fine addition, and essential for anyone interested in or studying the renaissance and its literature and culture.
In robust rhyming fourteeners Golding re-tells the most famous Greek myths: Narcissus and Echo, Daphne and Apollo, the rape of Persephone, Pygmalion, Orpheus etc etc. But this is more than a collection of ancient stories; this is a poetic text in its own right which is, by turn, funny, tragic, warm and chilling. Amazingly Golding manages to capture something of Ovid's own wit and playfulness while bedding his own version down within the world of Renaissance England.
If you haven't experienced Ovid before then I would recommend a more traditional translation like David Raeburn's one for Penguin or the accurate by less elegant Loeb edition. But if you know the original, then this is a fine addition, and essential for anyone interested in or studying the renaissance and its literature and culture.
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