Ovid's Heroines

By Ovid

Book Overview

Ovid's Heroides, written in Rome some time between 25 and 16 BC, was once his most popular work. The title translates as Heroines, and it's a series of poems in the voices of women from Greek and Roman myth - including Phaedra, Medea, Penelope and Ariadne - addressed to the men they love. It has been claimed as both the first book of dramatic monologues and the first of epistolary fiction. It's also a radical text in its literary transvestism, and the way it often presents the same story from very different, subjective perspectives. For a long time it was Ovid's most influential work, loved by Chaucer, Dante, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Donne, and translated by Dryden and Pope. Clare Pollard's new translation rediscovers Ovid's Heroines for the 21st century, with a cast of women who are brave, bitchy, sexy, suicidal, horrifying, heartbreaking and surprisingly modern. Two of the most popular poetry books of recent times have been Ted Hughes's new version of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife, dramatic monologues by women from myth and history giving their side of the story. Clare Pollard's new take on Ovid's Heroines is another book in that vein, bringing classic tales to life for modern readers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1852249765
• ISBN13: 9781852249762
• Release Date: May 2013
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Length: 110 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Mythology becomes real.

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in 43 B.C. and died in 18 A.D. Emperor Augustus banished him - for unknown reasons - to Tomi ( a barren place near the coast of the Black Sea ). A few scholars believe that this was a literary hoax created by Ovidius himself. With 'Heroides' ( Legendary Women ) Ovidius goes against the tradition where only men were allowed to complain in literary fiction about their ill fortune and human cruelty. These women are all characters from the greek mythology like Briseis (Trojan war), Hermione the daughter of Helen and even Sappho as heroine in the legend where she commits suicide by jumping from a cliff into the sea. Ovidius turned these women from rather abstract mythological characters into 'real' persons who could be recognized as such by the audience or the readers of Ovidius' work

very interesting book, but.....

I recommend this interesting book for everyone who is intersted in the "classical Greek & Roman world". However, I prefer to read it in the original Latin texts. And if you don't read the ancient Latin language well, I suggest you to read a volume(no.225) of the Loeb Classical Library.