Ancient Roman poet Ovid is remembered for his masterpiece, Metamorphoses, his clever and witty poems about love and retelling of ancient myths. His other poems include Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) and Tristia (Sorrows.) His famous contemporaries include Virgil and Horace.
Life and Times of Ovid
Publius Ovidus Nasso (Ovid) was born on March 20, 43 BC, in Sulmona, a town in central Italy, a family of wealthy landowners. His father encouraged him to become a lawyer and sent him to study in Rome, but Ovid found that he loved poetry more than legal rhetoric. He soon settled into a life of luxurious living and literature. By age 30, he was the most popular poet in Rome.
Ovid lived during the reign of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. The old Roman Republic, the government that had ruled Rome for centuries, had become corrupt and collapsed after years of bitter civil war. The new emperor was determined to reform Roman society and return it to the old values and strict morals of the early republic.
One of Ovid's most popular poems, The Art of Love, provoked the anger of Augustus. It was witty, sophisticated work about how to seduce a lover. Augustus thought the book was immoral. He banished Ovid to an isolated town by the Black Sea and had his books removed from public libraries.
Desolate and isolated, Ovid hated being so far from the Roman life he used to enjoy. He wrote poems begging the emperor to let him return. Augustus, and even his successor Tiberius, never relented. He died far from home, about the age of 60, c. AD 17.
Ovid's Poetry
Ovid used the meter often used in love poems, the elegiac couplet. When guiding the reader through the mysteries of love, he is more hands-on instructor rather than other elegists, especially in his The Art of Love, a didactic work on how to get and keep a lover.
In 19 BC, Virgil was regarded the greatest ancient Roman poet with his masterpiece Aeneid. It tells the story of Aeneas, the Trojan prince. Ovid wanted to retell part of Virgil's Aeneid in one of his earlier poems, Heroides. However, he did not change the story of Dido and Aeneas.
Before leaving Rome for his exile, Ovid had finished his greatest work, the long poem Metamorphoses, which is a collection of skilfully woven mythological stories. Its vivid and beautiful retelling of ancient Greek and Roman myths remained loved and widely read for centuries after his death.
Last Insight on Ovid
Despite his miserable exile in the Black Sea, Ovid did not sacrifice his genius for his tortured existence and unhappiness, but continued to write. Even in jest, he wanted to keep things light and in proper perspective.
A quote from Ovid, taken from Loves: "We, yield, and take this passion with a fight? / We yield: a burden gladly borne is light."
Works by Ovid
(Between 16 BC and AD 2)
- Loves (Amores)
- Heroides
- Women's Facial Care
- The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria)
- The Cures of Love
- Medea
(Between Ad 2 and 17)
- Feast Days (Fasti)
- Metamorphoses
- Tristia (Sorrows)
Sources:
- Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994.
- McGovern, Una, Ed. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers, 2002.
- Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997.
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