Synopses & Reviews
This major study of Ovid's poetry is the first significant analysis of the importance of illusion and the conjuring presence throughout his work. Modern theoretical approaches examine the topic from the points of view of poetics and rhetoric, aesthetics, the psychology of desire, philosophy, religion, and politics. There are also case studies of the reception of Ovid's poetics of illusion in Renaissance and modern literature and art. The book will interest those studying Latin and later European literature. Foreign language sections are accompanied by English translations.
Review
"[Hardie's] careful attention to the text and his illuminating discussions of Ovid's language allow him to bring traditional literary criticism into the twenty-first century." Classical Bulletin"...Hardie deserves the gratitude of all Ovid's readers for his most recent acute and enlightening study of the poet." Classical World"Philip Hardie deserves much praise for this fine book, and Ovid's Poetics of Illusions deserves a place on the shelves of every library and of every reader of Ovid." Bryn Mawr Classical Review"...this is a book that few scholars could write. Its combination of philological detail, literary (especially psychoanalytic) theory, sophisticated interpretation and broad scope is breathtaking." New England Classical Journal
Synopsis
A comprehensive treatment of the ways in which Ovid exploits illusion in his poetry.
Synopsis
This major study provides a comprehensive treatment of the ways in which Ovid creates and simultaneously deflates various kinds of illusion in his poetry, touching on his entire output, from the Amores to the exile poetry. It includes substantial discussions of Ovid's reception in western literature and art.
Synopsis
This is a major study of one of the most important poets of classical antiquity by a leading critic of Latin literature. It touches on the whole of Ovid's output, from the Amores to the exile poetry, and provides a comprehensive treatment of the ways in which he creates and simultaneously deflates various kinds of illusion in his poetry. The book includes substantial discussions of Ovid's reception in western literature and art, with sections on Petrarch, Shakespeare, and late twentieth-century historical novels about Ovid.
About the Author
Philip Hardie is Reader in Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of New Hall. He has published Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (1986), The Epic Successors of Virgil (1993), an edition of Virgil's Aeneid Book IX in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series (1994) and the volume on Virgil in the Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics (1998). He has edited The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (2002) and is currently contributing to the complete commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses to be published by the Fondazione Valla. He has also published numerous articles on Latin poetry and is working on a book on fama in Greek and Latin literature and the classical tradition. He is a General Editor of the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Impossible objects of desire; 3. Death, desire and monuments; 4. The Heroides; 5. Narcissus: the mirror of the text; 6. Pygmalion: art and illusion; 7. Absent presences of language; 8. Conjugal conjurings; 9. The exile poetry; 10. Ovid recalled in the modern novel; Bibliography; Index of modern authors; Index of passages discussed; General index.