Synopses & Reviews
Ovid's
Art of Love (
Ars Amatoria) and its sequel
Remedies for Love (
Remedia Amoris) are among the most notorious poems of the ancient world. In AD 8, the emperor Augustus exiled Ovid to the shores of the Black Sea for "a poem and a mistake." Whatever the mistake may have been, the poem was certainly the
Ars Amatoria, which the emperor found a bit too immoral.
In exile, Ovid composed Sad Things (Tristia), which included a defense of his life and work as brilliant and cheeky as his controversial love manuals. In a poem addressed to Augustus (Tristia 2), he argues, "Since all of life and literature is one long, steamy sex story, why single poor Ovid out?" While seemingly groveling at the emperor's feet, he creates an image of Augustus as capricious tyrant and himself as suffering artist that wins over every reader (except the one to whom it was addressed).
Bringing together translations of the Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, and Tristia 2, Julia Dyson Hejduk's The Offense of Love is the first book to include both the offense and the defense of Ovid's amatory work in a single volume. Hejduk's elegant and accurate translations, helpful notes, and comprehensive introduction will guide readers through Ovid's wickedly witty poetic tour of the literature, mythology, topography, religion, politics, and (of course) sexuality of ancient Rome.
Review
“Every reader will welcome a systematic appreciation of the ways Greek and Roman poets of different genres used the motif of Hercules and Hylas to highlight the primacy of poetics sharing the same post-Callimachean awareness that reality—even fictional reality—is more complicated and nuanced than the battlefield of the Homeric heroes.”—Marco Fantuzzi, Columbia University and the University of Macerata
Review
"The quality of Hejduk's translations is consistently high: they combine linguistic accuracy with a wit and verve that nicely rise to the challenge of Ovidian humor and irony."Gareth Williams, Columbia University
Review
"To conjoin
Tristia 2 with the
Ars and
Remedia is unique and an excellent idea. Hejduk is an accomplished translator and a scholar who has written widely on Ovid. The expectations raised by those qualifications are not disappointed in the translation, which is accurate, readable, and true to the spirit and style of Ovid."John F. Miller, University of Virginia
Synopsis
This book argues that Greek and Roman poets throughout classical antiquity used the myth of the lost boy Hylas and the hero Hercules to reflect allegorically on their own poetry and its position in literary history, and thus offers a unique diachronic case study of ancient self-reflexive poetry.
Synopsis
During a stopover of the Argo in Mysia, the boy Hylas sets out to fetch water for his companion Hercules. Wandering into the woods, he arrives at a secluded spring, inhabited by nymphs who fall in love with him and pull him into the water. Mad with worry, Hercules stays in Mysia to look for the boy, but he will never find him again . . .
In Echoing Hylas, Mark Heerink argues that the story of Hylas--a famous episode of the Argonauts' voyage--was used by poets throughout classical antiquity to reflect symbolically on the position of their poetry in the literary tradition. Certain elements of the story, including the characters of Hylas and Hercules themselves, functioned as metaphors of the art of poetry. In the Hellenistic age, for example, the poet Theocritus employed Hylas as an emblem of his innovative
bucolic verse, contrasting the boy with Hercules, who symbolized an older, heroic-epic tradition. The Roman poet Propertius further developed and transformed Theocritus's metapoetical allegory by turning Heracles into an elegiac lover in pursuit of an unattainable object of affection. In this way, the myth of Hylas became the subject of a dialogue among poets across time, from the Hellenistic age to the Flavian era. Each poet, Heerink demonstrates, used elements of the myth to claim his own place in a developing literary tradition.
With this innovative diachronic approach, Heerink opens a new dimension of ancient metapoetics and offers many insights into the works of Apollonius of Rhodes, Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius.
Synopsis
In
Echoing Hylas, Mark Heerink argues that the story of Hylas—a famous episode of the Argonauts’ voyage—was used by poets throughout classical antiquity to reflect symbolically on the position of their poetry in the literary tradition. Certain elements of the story, including the characters of Hylas and Hercules themselves, functioned as metaphors of the art of poetry. In the Hellenistic age, for example, the poet Theocritus employed Hylas as an emblem of his innovative bucolic verse, contrasting the boy with Hercules, who symbolized an older, heroic-epic tradition. The Roman poet Propertius further developed and transformed Theocritus’ metapoetical allegory by turning Heracles into an elegiac lover in pursuit of an unattainable object of affection. In this way, the myth of Hylas became the subject of a dialogue among poets across time, from the Hellenistic age to the Flavian era. Each poet, Heerink demonstrates, used elements of the myth to claim his own place in a developing literary tradition.
With this innovative diachronic approach, Heerink opens a new dimension of ancient metapoetics and offers many insights into the works of Apollonius of Rhodes, Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius.
Synopsis
This sparkling new translation of Ovids love poems, notorious for the sexual content that led to his exile by the emperor Augustus, also includes
Tristia 2, Ovids witty self-defense. With helpful footnotes and a comprehensive introduction, this edition gives readers a poetic tour of the literature, mythology, topography, religion, politics, and sexuality of ancient Rome.
About the Author
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCAD 17) was a popular Roman poet best known for his multivolume poem of myth and history, Metamorphoses. Julia Dyson Hejduk is a professor of classics at Baylor University. She is the author of Clodia: A Sourcebook and King of the Wood: The Sacrificial Victor in Virgil's Aeneid.”
Table of Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Some Notes on the Notes
Introduction
Why Read This Book (and This Introduction)?
Myth and Lit 101
When the Praeceptor Reads
Fifty Shades of Metaphor
The Illicit Sex Tour of Roman Topography and Religion
Ovid's Exile: Fact and Fiction
Ars Amatoria: Book 1
Ars Amatoria: Book 2
Ars Amatoria: Book 3
Remedia Amoris
Tristia: Book 2
Bibliography