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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 871.01
EAN: 9780674990463
ISBN: 0674990463
Label: Loeb Classical Library
Manufacturer: Loeb Classical Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 512
Publication Date: 1916-01-01
Publisher: Loeb Classical Library
Studio: Loeb Classical Library

Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE-17 CE), born at Sulmo, studied rhetoric and law at Rome. Later he did considerable public service there, and otherwise devoted himself to poetry and to society. Famous at first, he offended the emperor Augustus by his Ars Amatoria, and was banished because of this work and some other reason unknown to us, and dwelt in the cold and primitive town of Tomis on the Black Sea. He continued writing poetry, a kindly man, leading a temperate life. He died in exile.

Ovid's main surviving works are the Metamorphoses, a source of inspiration to artists and poets including Chaucer and Shakespeare; the Fasti, a poetic treatment of the Roman year of which Ovid finished only half; the Amores, love poems; the Ars Amatoria, not moral but clever and in parts beautiful; Heroides, fictitious love letters by legendary women to absent husbands; and the dismal works written in exile: the Tristia, appeals to persons including his wife and also the emperor; and similar Epistulae ex Ponto. Poetry came naturally to Ovid, who at his best is lively, graphic and lucid.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Ovid is in six volumes.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Excellent if occasionally archaic parallel translation
Review: The left page has the original in Latin and the right has an English translation. The set up of the text and plenty of line numbering allows you to easily track the corresponding phrases. There are occasionally some English words or phrases that sound old fashioned which is hardly a surprise since this is a translation almost a hundred years old. The original 1915 translation was corrected for errors in 1921 and the type reset in 1960. The book is a hard cover with good quality opaque paper that will accept pencil notations and erasures without substantial damage. The typeface is clear, well spaced and of adequate size. The six volumes of Ovid's works in this series include two covering the Metamorphoses. I found these to be particularly useful in following what liberties had been taken in other translations of this work.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Ovid is the Master
Review: I wrote a thesis on Ovid in college, so I'm a little biased, but this is one great translation. I love the Loeb series in general, and haven't seen a single edition that hasn't been well translated and edited. If you're reading a classic, read a Loeb.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Finest Book by Rome's Greatest Author
Review: Ovid is by far the greatest Roman poet. Certainly, Vergil's work must not be overlooked, with his excellent style and powerful emotion (a favorite scene of mine is the death of Laocoon); however, Ovid surpasses Rome's poet laureate by leaps and bounds: Ovid's dactylic hexameter is ornate and precise, and his poetry contains a daring irreverence that outraged Augustus. Few authors have surpassed the power of Ovid's pen, and his _Metamorphoses_ is his best work.

Although I am not entirely impressed with pedestrian prose translations of poetry, the Lobe edition's side-by-side translation provides the reader an adequate aid to begin to grasp the poet's beauty.

(If one desires to read Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ in English, I highly recommend Rolfe Humprhies's excellent translation.)

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Must for anyone interested in Latin!
Review: The Metamorphoses, of course, is one of, if not the, classical world's greatest mythological treatises. The Loeb edition's convenient format of original Latin text opposite a clear, concise English translation is invaluable for anyone who has ever been interested in Latin, and a wonderful study guide for the Latin scholar. Highly recommended.

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