Ovid As An Epic Poet

In his study of the structure of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Professor Otis shows that the real unity of the poem is to be sought not in the linkage but in the order or succession of episodes, motifs and ideas. The poem is nothing less than what Ovid called it, a carmen perpetuum, a narrative poem with a real continuity achieved by a gradual shift of emotional emphasis through a long series of episodes arranged in an elaborate pattern. For this second edition of his study of the Metamorphoses, or...