Dec 27, 2009

The Metamorphoses of Ovid | Critical Overview

The influence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses on Western art, music, drama, poetry, and literature cannot be overstated. If emulation is the greatest form of flattery, as it has been said, then there is perhaps no more complimented writer in the Western canon than Ovid.

Ovid’s impact is distinguished among the classical writers in that his fame grew during his own lifetime and continued to grow unabated after his death. Archeologists have found Ovidian graffiti dating to Ovid’s lifetime on the walls of Pompeii. According to Peter Knox, writing in his biographical essay on...