Art and Song: Orpheus and Pygmalion

05/02/14 • 45 min

This lecture focusses on the two most prominent lovers in Metamorphoses 9-11, Orpheus and Pygmalion. Both also happen to be artists. We first examine Orpheus, paying particular attention to the ways in which Ovid reworks the Virgilian account in Georgics 4, and then Pygmalion, concentrating on the nature of his passion and the connections between the sculptor and the internal narrator who tells his story. We conclude with reflections on the implications of these stories for our understanding of Ovid’s representation of artists in Metamorphoses.

Previous Episode

Changing Nature: Genre in the Metamorphoses

It is often said that Ovid's is a 'Callimachean epic', in other words an episodic and aetiological poem which eschews big scale narratives. As we are now tow thirds of the way through this poem, it is worth considering the degree to which the Metamorphoses 'plays by the rules' of epic poetry. In this lecture we consider the techniques and conventions which place this poem in the epic genre - particularly the scenes of battle or conflict; as well as the literary techniques which mark this poem as a hybrid or parodic epic.

Next Episode

Aeneid again? Troy and Rome

In books 11-14 of the Metamorphoses Ovid takes on the stories of Troy's fall and Rome's origin - have we finally reached the point of 'real epic'? In fact, Ovid's approach is very different from Virgil's in the Aeneid, and tends to focus on characters tangential to the canonical Virgilian and Homeric versions. There are also long diversions as characters from the Trojan War narrate non-military tales, with the result that Troy's destruction and Rome's foundation are told in a non-linear fashion. This lecture will explore Ovid's narrative strategy in these later books, and investigate the political and poetic effect of this Callimachean alternative to Roman foundation myth.