Ovid's Revisions
The Editor as Author

Scrutinizes Ovid's tendency to edit his major works and advertise their revised status, a distinctive feature of his literary career.

Francesca K. A. Martelli (Author)

9781108740081, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 September 2018

272 pages
24.5 x 17 x 1.5 cm, 0.5 kg

A striking feature of Ovid's literary career derives from the processes of revision to which he subjects the works and collections that make up his oeuvre. From the epigram prefacing the Amores, to the editorial notices built into the book-frames of the Epistulae Ex Ponto, Ovid repeatedly invites us to consider the transformative horizons that these editorial interventions open up for his individual works, and which also affect the shape of his career and authorial identity. Francesca K. A. Martelli plots the vicissitudes of Ovid's distinctive career-long habit, considering how it transforms the relationship between text, oeuvre and authorial voice, and how it relates to the revisory practices at work in the wider cultural and political matrix of Ovid's day. This fascinating study will be of great interest to students and scholars of classical literature, and to any literary critic interested in revision as a mode of authorial self-fashioning.

1. Introduction
2. Gemini amores: approaching the two editions
3. The ends of the affair: desire and deferral in the Ars Amatoria
4. Reformatting time (revision and the Fasti)
5. Tristia: revision and the authorial name
6. Books of letters: revision and the letter collection in the Epistulae ex Ponto
7. Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Poetry by individual poets [DCF]