Heroides (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Ovid
- First Published: 8
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Genres: Poetry, Epistolary literature, Elegy
- Subjects: Love or romance, Incest, Heroes or heroism, Italy or Italians, Greek or Roman times, Rome
Critical Evaluation:
In the Heroides or Letters of the Heroines, the Roman poet Ovid composed a series of dramatic letters in elegiac verse, alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and dactylic pentameter. “Elegy,” writes one of Ovid’s heroines, “is the weeping strain,” and indeed the mood of most of these letters is that of sadness. Most of the heroines have been rejected by famous heroes, Dido by Aeneas, Ariadne by Theseus, Hypsipyle by Jason, Oenone by Paris. Some are apprehensive of coming death either for themselves or for their lovers; Canace,...
[The entire page is 968 words long]
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