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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 873.01
EAN: 9780140447897
ISBN: 014044789X
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 768
Publication Date: 2004-08-03
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product Release Date: 2004-08-03
Studio: Penguin Classics

Ovid's sensuous and witty poem brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation—often as a result of love or lust—where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy. Erudite but light-hearted, dramatic and yet playful, the Metamorphoses has influenced writers and artists throughout the centuries from Shakespeare and Titian to Picasso and Ted Hughes.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: I am a changed man after reading Ovid
Review: I confess that reading Ovid's Metamorphoses has left me a changed man. His focus on transformation parables of ancient myths taught me quite a bit about change. I was intrigued by how often unwanted change was unwillingly created by life-denying action that angers one of the gods. All the great figures of ancient times are here: Daedalus, Achilles, Paris, Perseus, Hector, Pygmalion, Midas, Helen and Aeneas to name but a few. The origins of common fables must have had their ancient roots in Ovid. So much of art, especially painting, music and literature, owes its transformation from the tales articulated with wit and charm by Ovid. This is an important window into ancient times and the stories must have been intriguing to hear in engaging oratory. This is genuinely a great work of literature and the pages really fly by rapidly. These tales of Ovid on change helped me understand better the constant role of change in my own personal transformation. And, thus, the tales of Ovid transformed me in the reading and in the writing transformed Ovid into immortality.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Translator clarification
Review: In case you were wondering, the translators are multiple: the neoclassical British authors Dryden, Addison, and Pope.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: THE MORE THINGS CHANGE....
Review: First, this is obviously not a book for everyone - although anyone can read it - you have to really want to read it for it to be enjoyable. Take the time to read it slowly. If you try to skim it you will miss far too much.

The glossary and notes were very useful & I didn't find the type to be a problem.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Beautiful
Review: I initially bought this book because it was a required reading for a class. I had no idea how wonderful this book was. The poetry is so beautiful it moves you. It provokes and engages readers with something new every time you read it. If you're a fan of Roman mythology, this is a must.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Hobbled by bad book design
Review: It's not like designers at Penguin Classics are lacking
the knowledge
Of how to handle hexameters. Why then their failure
to use it
In Raeburn's recent translation of Metamorphoses?
On an average page, there's barely three verses that's
typeset within
A single line, with all others continued with vast
indent--
And most roving over a single word. The pages are
ugly,
Everything awkward to read. The font size is generous,
though,
So why not reduce it a point and gather more verses
together?
Nor does it help that the poem is written in thumping
sub-Longfellow,
With all of the beats but now with just one third the
sonority--
Dietetically versed. Avoid this volume. Feh, and more
feh.

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