Ovid's causes
Subtitle: cosmogony and aetiology in the Metamorphoses
By: K. Sara Myers.
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 206
Subjects: Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 or 18 A.D.; Fables, Latin -- History and criticism.; Mythology, Classical, in literature.; Cosmology, Ancient, in literature.; Metamorphosis in literature.; Cosmogony in literature.; Causation in literature.
Description: Ovid's Causes offers a new reassessment of the poet's longest and most difficult poem, the Metamorphoses. This poem has long been denied epic stature because of its stylistic and thematic diversity. K. Sara Myers demonstrates that the poem must be understood as the inheritor and interpreter of the Roman tradition of cosmological epic. She situates the poem in the traditions and conventions of Roman poetry and considers the ways in which it both fulfills and overturns the expectations of the epic genre.

The first and final chapters of this book examine the scientific and cosmological framework of the poem. Ovid's juxtaposition of scientific and mythological explanations is an aspect of his sophisticated manipulation of truth and fiction, and of the claims of philosophical poetry and mythological poetry.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-183) and indexes.