Niklas Holzberg
This is, to my knowledge, the first truly comprehensive study of modern American and European literary writings inspired and enlivened by their authors' readings of Ovid, the poet of the Metamorphoses. Theodore Ziolkowski has painted a picture of Ovidian influence against the background of political metamorphoses in the Western world, and the result is every bit as vivid as Ovid's portrayal of gods, heroes, and mortals.
Carole E. Newlands
In Ovid and the Moderns Theodore Ziolkowski focuses on the works that Ovid inspired in twentieth-century Europe, introducing the reader to new writers and their creations and to new analyses of more familiar texts. He thus offers a rich, fascinating, comparatist approach to the modern reception of arguably the greatest of the Roman poets, Ovid.
Willis G. Regier
The sweep of this brief book is impressive. Ziolkowski glances at music, painting, and sculpture and tracks such literary phenomena as influence, education, taste, and vogue.... Ziolkowski writes clearly, as Ovid would like, and to the point. The prose is jargon free.... Ziolkowski is learned, serious, and loves Ovid, though slightly less than he loves Virgil.