The Metamorphoses by Ovid centers around stories of transformation and change, and is particularly interested in the function of art throughout these tales. Art is a transformative process by its very nature, taking raw materials and using them to...

Anna C. Salter, an author, commented on the act of placing blame on victims of rape saying, “We mute the realization of malevolence-which is too threatening to bear- by turning offenders into victims themselves and by describing their behavior as...

The term “narcissist,” defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “A person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves,” comes from the story and character of Narcissus. He is a man who rejects the love of all who fall for him until he...

The mythological figure of Medea and her story has been told throughout the centuries, her deeds encouraging many moral and ethical debates. However, writers from different periods represent her in different ways, no retelling quite the same as...

In Book X of The Metamorphoses, Ovid recounts the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It is the well-known story of a Thracian poet, Orpheus, who travels into the underworld seeking return of his new bride, Eurydice, who had been bitten by a...

In Ovid's "Metamorphoses", there are a great many instances that link love and war, thus creating a disconcerting antithetical comparison prominent throughout the canon of literature. In particular, this theme can be seen in and around the region...

Jordan Reid Berkow

Final Paper

Rome of Augustus

April 17, 2003

"Make Panic Look Fetching": The Eroticization of Rape by Ovid

In both the Ars Armatoria and Metamorphoses, Ovid presents highly detailed, compelling scenes of rape, crafting these moments...

At the end of the Metamorphoses, Ovid boldly states “I will be borne, /The finer part of me, above the stars, /Immortal, and my name shall never die” (XV. 877-78). For Ovid, metamorphosis is a path to eternity and the preservation of time....

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a work about transience, and perhaps no two things in the natural world are more fleeting than life and beauty. Artists aim to preserve these two qualities in their work by simultaneously imitating the natural world to give...

The tile of Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses literally translates to mean “transformation.” The compendium is actually itself a transformational work, merging a multitude of Greek and Roman historical traditions into one massive epic poem. There are many...

In The Legend of Good Women, the God of Love predicates his definition of a “good woman” on the actions of surrounding characters rather than the protagonist herself. Being “virtuous” requires no action in these legends. Instead, it insists on a...

Few of the episodes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses have resonated so powerfully with audiences as Book VI’s story “Tereus, Procne, and Philomela” has been able to. From the time of Metamorphoses’ publication until the present day, the agonizing myth has...

In Metamorphoses, Ovid attempts the great task of recounting the history of the world, from its creation to the death of Julius Caesar. However, Ovid's work is not solely an encyclopaedia of mythology; it is also the source of much standard...

Throughout the ages, the theme of impossible love in literature has prevailed. Impossible love is an overall broad theme; generally speaking, it is a love that is forbidden, unrequired, or unable to flourish. Somewhere between 29 and 19 B.C. the...

The Breton lai Sir Orfeo is an English reworking of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. In contrast to the classical tale, this anonymously authored text replaces tragedy with comedy while also including a didactic function for a medieval Christian...

In the Metamorphoses, Ovid discusses tales of transformations and reveals a system of justice within them. Generally, the gods either grant transformations in response to prayers, but for those transformed unwillingly, the change was normally cast...

Ovid made a strange decision when he wrote his story about Arachne in Book VI, “Of Praise and Punishment.” After all, her story literally describes her spinning and weaving her art, so one would assume that Ovid would place his story about her in...

In Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, there is a shift in Part Two of the novel as Antoinette’s narrative voice is traded for that of her unnamed husband, presumably Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre. As he chronicles the events of their honeymoon leading up...

Metamorphoses, a collection of poems composed by the Ancient Roman poet Ovid documents hundreds of myths in an encyclopedic manner. It is a collection that is hugely influential in the Western canon and many of the myths surround the brutish...

“Daphne, the daughter of the river god / Peneus, was the first love of Apollo” (Ovid 1032). Thus begins Ovid’s recitation of the famous story of Apollo and Daphne in Book I of his 8 A.D. collection of stories, Metamorphoses, his most celebrated...

Ovid and Horace, Roman poets in the age of Augustus, collectively captured a very broad range of sentiments and atmosphere in the empire at this time. Horace wrote odes, satires, and epistles that glorify Augustus himself and his reforms and...

Jordan Reid Berkow

Final Paper

Rome of Augustus

April 17, 2003

"Make Panic Look Fetching": The Eroticization of Rape by Ovid

In both the Ars Armatoria and Metamorphoses, Ovid presents highly detailed, compelling scenes of rape, crafting these moments...

By 18 BC, morality among the citizens of Rome had depleted by such degree that the emperor was impelled to enact the lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus, which instituted adultery as a crime punishable by death or exile. This was the Rome of Ovid’s...