The Face of Nature: Wit, Narrative, and Cosmic Origins in Ovid's Metamorphoses
By Garth Tissol
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In these reflections on the mercurial qualities of style in Ovid's Meta-morphoses, Garth Tissol contends that stylistic features of the ever-shifting narrative surface, such as wordplay, narrative disruption, and the self-conscious reworking of the poetic tradition, are thematically significant. It is the style that makes the process of reading the work a changing, transformative experience, as it both embodies and reflects the poem's presentation of the world as defined by instability and flux. Tissol deftly illustrates that far from being merely ornamental, style is as much a site for interpretation as any other element of Ovid's art.
In the first chapter, Tissol argues that verbal wit and wordplay are closely linked to Ovidian metamorphoses. Wit challenges the ordinary conceptual categories of Ovid's readers, disturbing and extending the meanings and references of words. Thereby it contributes on the stylistic level to the readers' apprehension of flux. On a larger scale, parallel disturbances occur in the progress of narratives. In the second and third chapters, the author examines surprise and abrupt alteration of perspective as important features of narrative style. We experience reading as a transformative process not only in the characteristic indirection and unpredictability of Ovid's narrative but also in the memory of his predecessors. In the fourth chapter, Tissol shows how Ovid subsumes Vergil's Aeneid into the Metamorphoses in an especially rich allusive exploitation, one which contrasts Vergil's aetiological themes with those of his own work.
Originally published in 1997.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Related to The Face of Nature
Titles in the series (6)
Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Regulating the Social: The Welfare State and Local Politics in Imperial Germany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction, and Italian Modernity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gibeon, Where the Sun Stood Still: The Discovery of the Biblical City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt's Urabi Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related ebooks
Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making Silence Speak: Women's Voices in Greek Literature and Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDionysius of Halicarnassus: On Thucydides: Based on the Greek Text of Usener-Radermacher Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReading the Odyssey: Selected Interpretive Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Greek and Roman Necromancy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRitual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVirgil's Aeneid: Interpretation and Influence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlacing Aesthetics: Reflections on the Philosophic Tradition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Music of Tragedy: Performance and Imagination in Euripidean Theater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMedea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cattle of the Sun: Cows and Culture in the World of the Ancient Greeks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNatural Space In Literature: Imagination and Environment in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Fiction and Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: A New Translation by Peter Green Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rethinking the Other in Antiquity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Play of Space: Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsC.P. Cavafy Historical Poems: A Verse Translation with Commentaries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Essay on Man Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Wounded Animal: J. M. Coetzee and the Difficulty of Reality in Literature and Philosophy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Renaissance Minds and Their Fictions: Cusanus, Sidney, Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArion's Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book One of Apollonius' Argonautica Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEros and the Christ: Longing and Envy in Paul's Christology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater: Revised Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Letters and Orations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Religious Dreamworld of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: Recovering a Forgotten Hermeneutic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInterpreting Greek Tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Ancient History For You
Holy Bible: From the Ancient Eastern Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hero Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sex and Erotism in Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"America is the True Old World" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Magical Sexual Practices of Ancient Egypt: The Alchemy of Night Enchiridion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Survive in Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Living: The Classical Mannual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stolen Legacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs: How the People of the Bible Really Lived Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Secrets of the Freemasons: The Truth Behind the World's Most Mysterious Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paul: A Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sumerians: A History From Beginning to End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oh My Gods: A Modern Retelling of Greek and Roman Myths Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When God Had a Wife: The Fall and Rise of the Sacred Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Histories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Visionary: The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness (The Definitive Edition of Supernatural) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Caesar: Life of a Colossus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of the Peloponnesian War: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Troy: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for The Face of Nature
0 ratings0 reviews