The Roman poet PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO, known to the English-speaking
world as Ovid, was born in 43 BC and died in 17 AD. His major
works, Ars amatoria and Metamophorses, were famed both for their
technical mastery and their innovative interpretations of classical
myth. His verses were immensely influential on European art and
literature, and remain important source texts of Greek and Roman
mythology.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: Allen Mandelbaum was born in 1926 and died in
2011. His translations of Homer, Dante, Virgil, Quasimodo, and
Ungaretti were all published to great acclaim. His rendering of The
Aeneid won the National Book Award. He was the William R. Kenan,
Jr. Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University, North
Carolina.
ABOUT THE INTRODUCER: J. C. McKeown has served as a Research
Fellow and Senior Tutor at the University of Cambridge and is now
Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His
publications include a commentary on Ovid's Amores and A Cabinet of
Roman Curiosities. He is currently working on The Oxford Anthology
of Literature in the Roman World, which will be published in summer
2013.
“Reading Mandelbaum’s extraordinary translation, one imagines Ovid
in his darkest moods with the heart of Baudelaire . . .
Mandelbaum’s translation is brilliant. It throws off the stiff and
mild homogeneity of former translations and exposes the vivid
colors of mockery, laughter, and poison woven so beautifully by the
master.” —Booklist
“Mandelbaum’s Ovid, like his Dante, is unlikely to be equalled for
years to come.” —Bloomsbury Review
“The Metamorphoses is conceived on the grandest possible scale . .
. The number and variety of the metamorphoses are stunning: gods
and goddesses, heroes and nymphs, mortal men and women are changed
into wolves and bears, frogs and pigs, bulls and cows, deer and
birds, trees and flowers, rocks and rivers, spiders and snakes,
mountains and stars, while ships become sea nymphs, ants and stones
and statues become people, men become women and vice versa . . . An
elegantly entertaining and enthralling narrative.”
—from the Introduction by J. C. McKeown
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