Metamorphoses: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)Winner of the 2023 Academy of American Poets Harold Morton Landon Translation Award The first female translator of the epic into English in over sixty years, Stephanie McCarter addresses accuracy in translation and its representation of women, gendered dynamics of power, and sexual violence in Ovid’s classic. A Penguin Classic Ovid’s Metamorphoses is an epic poem, but one that upturns almost every convention. There is no main hero, no central conflict, and no sustained objective. What it is about (power, defiance, art, love, abuse, grief, rape, war, beauty, and so on) is as changeable as the beings that inhabit its pages. The sustained thread is power and how it transforms us, both those of us who have it and those of us who do not. For those who are brutalized and traumatized, transformation is often the outward manifestation of their trauma. A beautiful virgin is caught in the gaze of someone more powerful who rapes or tries to rape them, and they ultimately are turned into a tree or a lake or a stone or a bird. The victim’s objectification is clear: They are first a visual object, then a sexual object, and finally simply an object. Around 50 of the epic’s tales involve rape or attempted rape of women. Past translations have obscured or mitigated Ovid’s language so that rape appears to be consensual sex. Through her translation, McCarter considers the responsibility of handling sexual and social dynamics. Then why continue to read Ovid? McCarter proposes Ovid should be read because he gives us stories through which we can better explore ourselves and our world, and he illuminates problems that humans have been grappling with for millennia. Careful translation of rape and the body allows readers to see Ovid’s nuances clearly and to better appreciate how ideas about sexuality, beauty, and gender are constructed over time. This is especially important since so many of our own ideas about these phenomena are themselves undergoing rapid metamorphosis, and Ovid can help us see and understand this progression. The Metamorphoses holds up a kaleidoscopic lens to the modern world, one that offers us the opportunity to reflect on contemporary discussions about gender, sexuality, race, violence, art, and identity. |
Contents
Mercury Kills Argus | 32 |
BOOK | 36 |
BOOK THREE | 69 |
9 | 70 |
23 | 77 |
BOOK FOUR | 95 |
BOOK FIVE | 126 |
BOOK | 151 |
BOOK SEVEN | 177 |
BOOK EIGHT | 209 |
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Common terms and phrases
Acheloüs Achilles Aeacus Aeëtes Aeneas Aeneid Ajax Apollo arms asks Bacchus Baucis and Philemon beasts beneath bird blood body Book brother bull burn Cadmus Caeneus called centaurs chariot chest Cinyras crime Cycnus daughter death Deianira Diana earth epic Eurytus eyes face famous father fear flames flees gaze gift girl goddess gods Greek grief groans hair hand heaven Hercules hero Hippomenes horns husband Iliad Iphis Jove Jove's Juno killed king land Lapiths leaves limbs looks lover manly valor Medea Metamorphoses Minerva Minos Minyads mother mouth neck nymphs Odysseus Odyssey once Orpheus Ovid Ovid's Peleus Peloponnese Pentheus Perseus Phaethon Phoebus Pirithoüs prayers Procne rape river Roman says sexual sister snake snatched spear spoke story streams sword tale tears tell Tereus Theseus transformed tree Trojan Troy turned Ulysses Venus virgin voice waves wife wind wings woods words wound wrath young