Metamorphoses Reimagined

by Michael Marder

Overview

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, existence is perpetual transformation. Humans and gods become plants and animals, stones and stars—or something in between. No rigid distinctions remain untroubled. In his own time and in ours, Ovid’s work challenges fundamental assumptions about the universe and humans’ place in it.

Metamorphoses Reimagined offers a twenty-first-century retelling of Ovid’s masterpiece that decenters the human. Michael Marder reinvents the text in new genres—letters, essays, confessions, prayers, poetic fragments, and dramatic dialogues, among others—some picking up where the original left off, others reconceiving the narrative in alternative forms. Marder’s metamorphoses invert protagonists’ relationships and reinterpret their transformations, playing with stylistic adaptations and foregrounding nonanthropocentric points of view. Above all, they explore the metamorphosis of language itself and ask in what, if any, sense the notion and the figure of the human are worth holding onto today.

Providing fresh perspective on Ovid’s classic in light of contemporary concerns, Metamorphoses Reimagined is a work of breathtaking philosophical, literary, and linguistic experimentation, proposing creative ways to write and think, to be and become.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231559447
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	10/02/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	26 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Michael Marder is Ikerbasque Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain, and senior fellow at the Institute for Global Reconstitution (IGRec), Germany. His previous Columbia University Press books include Political Categories: Thinking Beyond Concepts (2019), Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life (2013), and, with Edward S. Casey, Plants in Place: A Phenomenology of the Vegetal (2023).

Table of Contents

Preface
Prelude: Chaos (Liber I, 1–30)
The First Metamorphosis, or Man Is a Wolf to God (Liber I, 210–240)
Stone(s) Age (Liber I, 380–415)
Daphne’s Fugues (Liber I, 452–567)
Io: The Nonmetamorphosis (Liber I, 568–688)
Syrinx: Becoming-in-Place, Becoming-Plant (Liber I, 698–712)
The Sisters of Phaethon: The Vegetal Shape of Grief (Liber II, 330–365)
. . . and the Animal Shape of Grief: The Swan Song of Cycnus (Liber II, 366–380)
Callisto: The Most Beautiful She-Bear (Liber II, 401–530)
Crow Trouble (Liber II, 531–632)
Another Sort of Metamorphosis: Asclepius and Ocyrhoe (Liber II, 633–675)
Battus: Becoming-Stone (Liber II, 676–707)
Metamorphosing Into a Statue: Aglauros (Liber II, 708–832)
When a God Steals Himself: Europa’s Bull (Liber II, 833–875)
Interdeath, Interbirth: Cadmus and the Sowing of Serpent Teeth (Liber III, 1–137)
Actaeon: The Revenge of the Hunted (Liber III, 138–252)
Fiery Manifestations: Semele (Liber III, 253–315)
Trans-Tiresias (Liber III, 316–338)
Disembodying Metamorphoses: Echo and Narcissus (Liber III, 339–510)
Frenzied Becomings I: Dolphins and Other Marine Motifs Borrowed from Lydian Sailors (Liber III, 572–700)
Frenzied Becomings II: Pentheus, or the Voice of Reason as a Wild Boar (Liber III, 511–733)
Human Blood/Plant Sap: On Pyramus and Thisbe (Liber IV, 55–166)
Mars and Venus: Exposure (Liber IV, 167–189)
Shrub Diaries: Leucothoe (Liber IV, 190–273)
Two Becoming One: Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, with Some Formulas and Formulations (Liber IV, 274–388)
Twilight (Liber IV, 389–415)
Metamorphosing Minds: The Madness of Athamas and Ino (Liber IV, 416–562)
For “What Remains of Me”: Cadmus’s Wife and Becoming-Snake (Liber IV, 563–603)
To Become a Mountain: Atlas (Liber IV, 604–663)
Andromeda and Perseus: Becoming Free (Liber IV, 664–739)
From Living to Dead Corals, from Woods to Wood (Liber IV, 740–764)
Pulped Nonfiction (Liber V, 1–156)
Perseus, Again: Heart of Stone (Liber V, 157–250)
Becoming Liquid: A Riddle (Liber V, 255–267)
Pyreneus: Excerpts from a Self-Help Book (Liber V, 268–293)
9/IX: The Daughters of Euippe (Liber V, 294–319)
An Island Meditation (Liber V, 320–361)
Tearful Metamorphoses: Cyane (Liber V, 410–437, 462–470)
Seasonal Existence: Proserpina’s Questions (Liber V, 385–409, 564–571)
Arethusa: Becoming the Other (Liber V, 572–641)
For Arachne: A Few Threads to Follow (Liber VI, 1–145)
Niobe: Becoming Scarce (Liber VI, 146–312)
Becoming Abundant: Lycian Peasants (Liber VI, 313–381)
Skinned: Marsyas’s Grammar Lesson (Liber VI, 382–400)
Becoming Whole: Pelops (Liber VI, 401–411)
Tereus & Co.: A Whirlwind of Metamorphoses—Fire, Snakes, Autophagy, Birds (Liber VI, 412–674)
Changing Strategies, Metamorphosing Moods: A Nearly Tautogrammic Reflection (Liber VI, 675–721)
Proverbial Wisdom: Medea (Liber VII, 1–158)
The Art of Becoming Immortal (Liber VII, 159–293)
The Art of Becoming Mortal (Liber VII, 294–349)
Up and Down: Air and Earth—A Meditation (Liber VII, 350–403)
The Capture of Cerberus (Liber VII, 404–452)
Getting Infected: Pandemic Diaries (Liber VII, 453–613)
Cross-Species Immigrants: An Interrogation Transcript (Liber VII, 614–660)
Becoming Unfaithful: Cephalus and Procris (Liber VII, 661–865)
Dreams from My Owner: A Memoir (Liber VIII, 1–151)
Ariadne Variations (Liber VIII, 152–182)
How to Soar Above the Labyrinth of Your Mind: Icarus’s Wings (Liber VIII, 183–235)
To Perdix, the Inventor (Liber VIII, 236–259)
Diana’s Boar: A Phytological Ritual for the Animals That We Are (Liber VIII, 260–450)
Meleager: Becoming Ashes (Liber VIII, 451–545)
Island Afterlife: Perimele (Liber VIII, 546–610)
Tree Hospitality: An Exegesis (Liber VIII, 611–724)
Sometimes: Proteus, the Daughter of Erysichthon, and Erysichthon (Liber VIII, 730–874)
Phallic Metamorphoses (Liber IX, 1–97)
Flooding: Reflections from the Event (Liber IX, 98–133)
Clothes-Skin, Skin-Clothes: Hercules (Liber IX, 134–272)
Becoming Atmospheric: Lichas (Liber IX, 211–229)
Notes on Position: Alcmene (Liber IX, 273–323)
Dryope: Becoming a Cut (Plant) (Liber IX, 324–393)
Becoming Young (Again), Growing Older: Iolaus and the Sons of Callirrhoe (Liber IX, 394–438)
Byblis: The Externalization of Desire (Liber IX, 439–665)
The Trans/Formations of Iphis (Liber IX, 666–797)
Don’t Look Back: Orpheus and Eurydice (Liber X, 1–85)
Coming, Becoming—A Cypress Tree (Liber X, 86–142)
Of Plants and Planets, of Stars and Seeds: Ganymede and Hyacinthus (Liber X, 143–219)
Sin and Crime: Venus and Cerastae (Liber X, 220–242)
Pygmalion, the Morning After (Liber X, 243–297)
Myrrha: The Thrashing About of “Nature” (Liber X, 298–502)
Running: Atalanta and Hippomenes (Liber X, 503–707)
Adonis, Adonai, Anemone Coronaria (Liber X, 708–739)
Orpheus and His Critics (Liber XI, 1–84)
The Midas Touch: Script for a Commercial (Liber XI, 85–193)
Building-with, Building-against: How Troy Fell Before the Fall of Troy (Liber XI, 194–220)
The Tenacity of Substance: Peleus and Thetis (Liber XI, 221–265)
A Cycle of Violence: Daedalion (Liber XI, 266–345)
Becoming a Fossil: The Wolf of Nereid (Liber XI, 346–409)
Being No More: Alcyone and Ceyx (Liber XI, 410–748)
The Infuriating Destiny of Becoming an Immortal Animal (Liber XI, 410–748)
A Happy End: Iphigenia (Liber XII, 1–39)
“Dwelling,” Online (Liber XII, 40–63)
On Deicide: Cycnus and Achilles (Liber XII, 64–145)
Tra-ta-ta: Trauma, Transition—Caenis/Caeneus and Neptune (Liber XII, 146–209)
Lapiths and Centaurs: Weaponization and Disfiguration (Liber XII, 210–535)
Periclymenus: A Parody of a Parody, or in the Footsteps of Proteus and Thetis (Liber XII, 536–579)
The Death of Achilles in Fragments (Liber XII, 580–630)
Weapon-Oriented Ontology (WOO): The Arms of Achilles (Liber XIII, 1–398)
Hecuba’s Lament: The Howl of the Place (Liber XIII, 399–575)
Becoming-Many: Memnon (Liber XIII, 576–622)
The Daughters of Anius: A Blessing (Liber XIII, 623–647)
The Daughters of Orion: A Blood Offering for the Wounded Earth (Liber XIII, 648–699)
Polyphemus and Galatea: Land and Sea (Liber XIII, 700–897)
Phytomorphosis: Glaucus (Liber XIII, 898–969; Liber XIV, 1–79)
The Sibyl’s Monologue (Liber XIV, 80–153)
Becoming-Foreign-to-Yourself: Achaemenides (Liber XIV, 154–222)
Aeolus: The Ruler of the Winds (Liber XIV, 223–319)
Picus, or the Keyboard Pecker (Liber XIV, 320–434)
Acmon Turning Into a Bird: A Joke (Liber XIV, 435–511)
An Apulian Shepherd: Bitter Words, Bitter Fruits (Liber XIV, 512–565)
Re: A Funereal Hymn for Aeneas (Liber XIV, 566–608)
Vertumnus, Vertimus: The Turn of Becoming (Liber XIV, 609–697)
Marble Thoughts: Anaxarete (Liber XIV, 698–764)
The Apotheosis of Romulus: Blood for Celestial Peace (Liber XIV, 765–851)
Homeland Insecurity: Myscelus (Liber XV, 1–59)
A Vegan Feast of Words: Pythagoras (Liber XV, 60–390)
The Phoenix Memo (Liber XV, 391–478)
Running Out of Words: A Wounded Body Politic—Hippolytus (Liber XV, 391–546)
Being Double: Cipus (Liber XV, 547–621)
Orbi et Urbi: To the World and to the City—The Approximations of Power (Liber XV, 622–744)
The Indigestibility of Fate (Liber XV, 745–870)
The Work Undone: Ovid (Liber XV, 871–879)

Editorial Reviews

Marder has metamorphized The Metamorphoses. In a bold intervention, he worked into the process that weaves and unravels Ovid’s text out of sounds, plants, flesh, bones, and spirits one more precious stone: this very book.

Marcus Coelen

Michael Marder’s Metamorphoses Reimagined is a literary triumph, a transmutation more than a translation, and should be widely read. Marder’s retelling of Ovid is radical in intent and kaleidoscopic in its choice of devices. It brings the time and detail of epic together with the time and detail of the contemporary in innovative, experimental ways. There is something especially cinematic to this poet-philosopher’s vivid re-narrating of the Latin original into a montage of performance and staging directions, utterance and annotation. As he deconstructs and recomposes Metamorphoses through a constellation of genres, Marder reclaims the baroque for us, in its defiantly transgressive and unpredictable excess—as a technique of being and redrafting our relationship to the world, of recrafting stories and songs as we come to grips with our turbulent Now.

Ranjit Hoskote

Marder’s book is more than a rewriting or rereading of Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a writing-reading-listening-seeing at the same time, metamorphoses metamorphosing in words-images-sounds. It reveals what common hermeneutics forgets: namely, the courage to see-listen-think-write-recall-imagine in one gesture, without any attempt to unite or synthesize differences.

Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback