Ovid's Poetics of Illusion

A comprehensive treatment of the ways in which Ovid exploits illusion in his poetry.

Philip Hardie (Author)

9780521800877, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 February 2002

376 pages, 12 b/w illus.
23.7 x 15.9 x 2.5 cm, 0.655 kg

'… this book … should be in the hands not only of anyone interested in Ovid, but of anyone interested in ancient, or modern, poetics as well.' Journal of Roman Studies

Ovid's poetry is haunted obsessively by a sense both of the living fullness of the texts and of the emptiness of these 'insubstantial pageants'. This major study touches on the whole of Ovid's output, from the Amores to the exile poetry, and is an overarching treatment of illusionism and the textual conjuring of presence in the corpus. Modern critical and theoretical approaches, accompanied by close readings of individual passages, 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 students and scholars of Latin and later European literatures. All foreign languages are accompanied by translations.

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.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]