Ovid's Poetics of Illusion

by Philip Hardie

Overview

This major study of Ovid's poetry is the first significant analysis of the importance of illusion and the conjuring presence throughout his work. Modern theoretical approaches examine the topic from the points of view of poetics and rhetoric, aesthetics, the psychology of desire, philosophy, religion, and politics. There are also case studies of the reception of Ovid's poetics of illusion in Renaissance and modern literature and art. The book will interest those studying Latin and later European literature. Foreign language sections are accompanied by English translations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521800877
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/07/2002
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.33(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Philip Hardie is Reader in Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of New Hall. He has published Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (1986), The Epic Successors of Virgil (1993), an edition of Virgil's Aeneid Book IX in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series (1994) and the volume on Virgil in the Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics (1998). He has edited The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (2002) and is currently contributing to the complete commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses to be published by the Fondazione Valla. He has also published numerous articles on Latin poetry and is working on a book on fama in Greek and Latin literature and the classical tradition. He is a General Editor of the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Impossible objects of desire; 3. Death, desire and monuments; 4. The Heroides; 5. Narcissus: the mirror of the text; 6. Pygmalion: art and illusion; 7. Absent presences of language; 8. Conjugal conjurings; 9. The exile poetry; 10. Ovid recalled in the modern novel; Bibliography; Index of modern authors; Index of passages discussed; General index.

Editorial Reviews

"[Hardie's] careful attention to the text and his illuminating discussions of Ovid's language allow him to bring traditional literary criticism into the twenty-first century." Classical Bulletin

"...Hardie deserves the gratitude of all Ovid's readers for his most recent acute and enlightening study of the poet." Classical World

"Philip Hardie deserves much praise for this fine book, and Ovid's Poetics of Illusions deserves a place on the shelves of every library and of every reader of Ovid." Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"...this is a book that few scholars could write. Its combination of philological detail, literary (especially psychoanalytic) theory, sophisticated interpretation and broad scope is breathtaking." New England Classical Journal

"The breadth of his reading, in classics and other disciplines, provides much new food for thought. For Ovidians, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion may be hailed as a masterly synthesis and summation of recent critical impulses; for Vergilians, it offers many stimulating insights into the way Vergil's poetics of illusion are present in Ovid." - Stephen Wheeler, Pennsylvania State University

From the Publisher