Reception of Ovid

Das Gemälde «La Primavera» (Frühling) gehört zu den bekanntesten Werken der abendländischen Kunst und hängt heute in den Uffizien in Florenz. Es wurde in den späten 1470er oder mittleren 1480er Jahre vom berühmten italienischen Renaissancemaler Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510) im Auftrag der Medici gemalt. Damals wie heute fasziniert es in seiner Komposition und Ausarbei-tung und lässt viel Spielraum für Interpretationen übrig. Um eine Interpretationsmöglichkeit zu geben, liegt die Analyse der literarischen Grundlagen für die dargestellte Szenerie auf der Hand. So findet man in diversen Werken antiker Autoren literarische Beschreibungen gewisser Teile des Gemäldes, nach deren Konsultation sich ein weiter Interpretationshorizont auf rezeptionsästheti-scher Basis sowohl für die Schriften, als auch das Gemälde eröffnet. Die Wiederentdeckung und die intensive Auseinandersetzung mit antiken Autoren und deren Werken durch italienische Humanisten in der Frührenaissance ermöglichten Künstlern, wie Sandro Botticelli, Tizian und Bellini, diese Aufarbeitung in ihr Schaffen einzubeziehen.
In dieser Arbeit werden daher mögliche Textgrundlagen diverser antiker Autoren für die Ausarbei-tung von Botticellis «La Primavera» zusammengetragen, übersetzt und dann zur Interpretation des Werkes selber herangezogen, um die Frage nach den rezeptionsästhetischen Einflüssen der Werke zu beantworten. Da eine solche Interpretation stets subjektiv geprägt ist, liegt der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit auf der Wirkung der Texte und Botticellis Gemälde unter rezeptionsästhetischen Gesichts-punkten, da die Rezeptionsästhetik basierend auf der Konstanzer Schule diese Subjektivität ermöglicht.

En este trabajo se examinan varios pasajes de las estorias alfonsíes (General estoria y Estoria de España) que son traducción de los mismos textos latinos para comprobar qué cambios sufren los textos en el proceso de traducción y en el de redacción definitiva de la obra, así como para intentar decidir si puede asegurarse o no que los alfonsíes realizaron siempre una traducción de sus fuentes sobre la cual trabajaron posteriormente los redactores de diferentes segmentos e incluso de diferentes obras, sin necesidad de volver a la fuente latina. El análisis se realiza sobre textos de la Estoria de España y de distintas partes de la General estoria que son traducción de segmentos de la Farsalia, de la Historia regum Britanniae y de la Heroida VII.

After the audacious study and profound interest in Latin literature by the autodidact Charles Chesnutt is presented, this contribution argues that, unlike scholarship up to now pointing to orally-passed African American folktales, many of Chesnutt's Conjure Woman stories are in fact variations of selected stories from Ovid's masterpiece Metamorphoses. This claim is underscored by citing specific incidences of conjuring of North Carolina slaves into animals and trees in Chesnutt's stories with the magic (Voodoo) transformations of characters in selections of Metamorphoses by Ovid.  This use of Ovid by Chesnutt is argued to be an example of "signifying" as described in the theory of African American rhetoric by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his study, The Signifying Monkey.

La Puglia del XII secolo fu il fulcro di un pellegrinaggio «circolare» che coinvolgeva Compostella, Roma, Bari, Monte Sant’Angelo e Gerusalemme. Questa rete comportava una concorrenza tra i santuari, che tentavano di offrire ai pellegrini una cultura figurativa aggiornata sulle loro vicende e spesso basata sugli scambi artistici.  Perciò analizzerò un esempio risalente agli inizi del XII secolo, legato ai grandi cantieri di San Nicola di Bari e del Romanico pugliese e al loro possibile rapporto con la cattedrale compostellana lungo le vie di pellegrinaggio verso Santiago. Si tratta di un notevole fenomeno di migrazione di modelli e di ricezione artistica, in cui due insoliti acroteri figurati della cattedrale di Santiago di Compostella eseguiti verso gli anni 1122-1124 trovano una spiegazione soltanto grazie alla conoscenza dell’arte della Puglia normanna

and Keywords This chapter examines the intermingling of rhetorical theory, educational training in Latin grammar and rhetoric, and literary representations that designate bodies, texts, genres, figures, and tropes as "male," "female," and/or "epicene" (of common gender). Arguing that a tripartite rather than binary scheme is appropriate to early modern British literature and culture, the chapter historicizes Jacques Lacan's abstract psychoanalytic claims about the "Symbolic Order" by examining language games, community practices, and social texts at work in literary texts that translate classical rhetorical training into vernacular literary practice. Focusing on William Shakespeare, John Webster, and George Gascoigne, the chapter explores the vogue for Ovidian cross-voicing in light of grammar school training in prosopopoeia and impersonation. Along the way it analyzes many examples of literary imitatio in which a male/female binary distinction collapses and rhetoric's translation into literary invention is rendered legible in epicene figures that defy easy categorization.

Returning to the work begun in Amy Richlin's seminal essay on the unsettling topic of sexual violence in Ovid's work, "Reading Ovid's Rapes," this paper takes another look at the rich interpretive problems posed by the incessantly recurring theme of sexual violence in the "Metamorphoses." Though the perpetrators are almost exclusively divine, roughly a third of the myths recounted by the Roman poet features some form of sexual assault. When read in the context of conservative Augustan-era marriage legislation like the "Lex Julia de adulteriis," Ovid's insistence on the theme can be read as an indictment of Augustus himself, who after all insisted on likening himself in official imperial iconography to the cult of such gods as Apollo and Jupiter, two of the most egregious assailants throughout the long poem. However, each reiteration of the theme also reveals a series of other important concomitant concerns that arise from cases of sexual violence, including questions pertaining to illegitimate children and other unanticipated repercussions in the victim's family, that actually reveal Ovid to be more seriously engaged in thinking about the subject than he is commonly given credit for. Taking Ovid to task for the grave issues he tackles can actually provide fodder for productive discussion of topical issues effecting life on campus and in our country today. It is absolutely imperative that certain topics be addressed in productive and adult ways with our students if we expect to raise the level of our public discourse. Far from aestheticizing these topics as mere literary artifacts, Ovid's complex text demands to be read on a number of levels that are all pertinent to the world in which we live today.

This paper discusses three very influential contributions to contemporary Ovidian criticism: Italo Calvino’s "Ovid and Universal Contiguity" (1979) and "Six Memos for the Next Millennium" (1988), Gianpiero Rosati’s "Narciso e Pigmalione" (1983) and Nicola Gardini’s "Con Ovidio" (2017). Within the essays of these three Italian critics and authors emerges an idea of the "Metamorphoses" as a grandiose depiction of the precarious and deceptive nature of reality: an idea which is not, of course, the only interpretive option from a critical point of view, but is doubtless the best suited to the "Zeitgeist" in the «Age of Uncertainty».

BLOCH Jonathan, « Translatio Ovidii. De l’Ovide moralisé en vers à sa traduction (et impression ?) par William Caxton », dans Pérégrinations et métamorphoses. Actes de la journée d’études du 19 oct. 2017, Presses universitaires de l’ICES, La Roche sur Yon, 2019 (coll. Colloques), p. 41-66.

This article examines two Dutch diplomatic missions, in 1627-28 and 1635, by which the United Provinces intervened in a Polish-Swedish armed conflict in Prussia. The focus is on 'diplomatic poetics': the ways in which literature functioned within diplomatic practice, and how that practice (or the 'diplomatic moment') was in turn envisioned in literature. The Polish-Swedish conflict was of great interest to the United Provinces, and was elaborately discussed in various Dutch media, as well as in the correspondences of merchants and politicians. The Dutch embassies to Polish territories themselves, meanwhile, inspired a number of literary works, published mostly in the Republic, but also in for example Danzig and Königsberg. These sources demonstrate how early modern literary and diplomatic practices in Europe overlapped and influenced each other. Firstly, German, French and Dutch poems by Johannes Plavius, Simon van Beaumont and Joost van den Vondel illustrate the blurring of the lines between the realms of diplomacy and literature. Poems could function as diplomatic gifts, enabling both personal, intellectual communication and the widespread transmission of political messages. Moreover, Latin and German plays by Johannes Narssius and Simon Dach, and more importantly Latin poems by Simon van Beaumont and Caspar Barlaeus, as well as an illustrated Dutch account of the first mission by Abraham Booth, reveal that the Dutch envoys featured in literary narratives as both wise peace bringers and travelling poets, and their missions to Poland as both arduous ordeals and epic adventures. Much like poetic gifts, these literary reflections on 'the diplomatic moment' had public diplomatic agency, simultaneously voicing political opinions and crafting artistic images of the diplomats themselves.

In these essays Peter Dronke looks at some of the relations between sacred and profane ideas and images, and Christian and pagan motifs, particularly in the early Middle Ages. The first two parts of the book dwell on aspects of (in the widest sense) Christian Platonism, the one part focussing on themes, the other on some of the greatest thinkers in the Latin world, from Boethius in the sixth century to Thierry of Chartres in the twelfth. The emphasis throughout is on transformations and syncretisms far more than disjunctions. The final group of essays is concerned with poetic texts, Latin and vernacular, in which non-sacred elements make their way into the sacred, the biblical and the saintly realms. A brief Epilogue glances at early medieval profane poetry outside as well as within Europe.

La 'fabula' di Piramo e Tisbe ("Metam.", IV, 55–166) è stata, attraverso i secoli, al centro di una nutrita serie di rielaborazioni, riscritture e transcodificazioni di varia natura che hanno evidenziato e, per così dire, celebrato secondo diversificate modalità l’eterna universalità del suo 'pattern' narrativo e della sua “sostanza” antropologica.
Il presente volume analizza e scandaglia la complessa e stratificata ricezione dell’episodio ovidiano entro la letteratura e la cultura italiana tra Medioevo e Età moderna.
Cantari, volgarizzamenti, novelle, poemetti, favole pastorali, tragedie e melodrammi costituiscono i principali tasselli di un affascinante e caleidoscopico viaggio storico-letterario che mostra 'ad abundantiam' l’estrema vitalità del mito dei due giovinetti babilonesi e chiarisce, grazie alla verifica degli “scarti” intertestuali rispetto all’ipotesto, come le multiple riformulazioni del 'récit' ovidiano (capace di ridisegnare continuamente la propria identità e il proprio destino aderendo ai terreni culturali e spirituali più disparati) riflettano e manifestino di volta in volta istanze e funzioni molto differenti tra loro, variamente connesse alle 'intentiones auctoris' e ai contesti storico-sociali di riferimento, in un infinito gioco metamorfico di forme e idee, immagini e significati.

As the author has argued in a previous paper, CIL IV, 5296 is only the rather clumsy and partial transcription of a poem that has not been composed by the graffito writer himself; its author – very likely a woman – was working with a rather good knowledge of the Latin literary culture. Expanding on these conclusions, this study analyzes some textual and prosodic problems; provides some insight on the compositional technique and structure of the short poem; highlights the interest but also the uncertainties of the gender issues raised by the text.

Didone, esule regina fenicia, fonda Cartagine, accoglie Enea, profugo da Troia, se ne innamora follemente e, abbandonata, si toglie la vita per aver tradito la fedeltà alla memoria del marito Sicheo. Questa è la storia che racconta Virgilio nel IV libro dell’Eneide: una commovente tragedia incastonata nell’epos, forse il testo più celebre e fortunato della letteratura di Roma. Esisteva però un’altra Didone,  l’eroina del mito – precedente all’Eneide – che si gettava tra le fiamme proprio per non venir meno al primo vincolo nuziale. Di qui il paradosso della sua fama: da eroina della fedeltà coniugale, Didone diviene, grazie a Virgilio, protagonista di una tragedia di amore e di abbandono. Ma, nelle riscritture del mito, il dialogo allusivo tra le “due Didoni” riaffiora, a partire da Ovidio, ogni qual volta un autore vorrà scontrarsi con Virgilio (e con la tradizione culturale “ufficiale” che si identifica con la sua poesia). Exemplum morale in Boccaccio, tormentata eroina intertestuale nelle rinnovate forme tragiche del Rinascimento, amante moderna che inaugura la rivoluzione del melodramma settecentesco, straziante simbolo o allegoria nello sperimentalismo della poesia del Novecento: infinite e sempre nuove le sfumature nelle quali Didone si rivela nei testi di questo volume. Poiché inesauribile è la ricchezza della poesia da cui proviene, e universale la sua tragedia d’amore.

Il contributo prende in esame alcune riprese del mito di Deucalione e Pirra nelle riscritture delle Metamorfosi di questi ultimi anni, coincidenti con quella che è stata definita la «nuova età ovidiana»: nella poesia "Deucalion and Pyrrha" di Christopher Reid nella raccolta "After Ovid" (1994) la narrazione in pochi versi dell’episodio che in Ovidio ne occupa diverse decine suggerisce, di per sé, la scelta di poetica che è alla base dell’intera raccolta e di quasi tutte le riscritture contemporanee delle Metamorfosi, che propongono una versione ‘frammentaria’ e (volutamente) disorganica del poema ovidiano; nei "Tales from Ovid" (1997) di Ted Hughes, la soppressione dell’episodio è uno dei principali fattori che determinano la lettura delle Metamorfosi in chiave ‘pessimista’ propria della traduzione/riscrittura dell’Autore, nella quale la sequenza di apertura si chiude con il diluvio e l’assenza dell’episodio di Deucalione e Pirra determina in tal modo una sorta di effetto paradigmatico ‘in negativo’, ottenuto per sottrazione piuttosto che per accostamento; nel romanzo "Die letzte Welt" (1988) di Christoph Ransmayr, infine, il mito – oltre ad essere esplicitamente ripreso e ‘decostruito’ – viene anche (e soprattutto) indirettamente rovesciato in quel vagheggiamento della pietrificazione «come riscatto, come grigio cammino nel paradiso dei ghiaioni, dei circhi glaciali e dei deserti» nel quale si risolvono il rifiuto della socialità e la ricreazione del mondo attraverso il potere magico-sciamanico della parola poetica, che costituiscono il principale assunto del romanzo.

Hamilton Sérgio Nery de Medeiros é natural de João Pessoa, Paraíba. Possui Licenciatura em Letras Clássicas (Grego e Latim), pela Universidade Federal da Paraíba, e mestrando na mesma área, pela linha de pesquisa em Estudos Clássicos do PPGL-UFPB. Nesta obra, Deucalião e Pirra e o Dilúvio, o autor apresenta suas composições baseadas nos mitos homônimos, tratados por Ovídio em sua obra Metamorfoses. Medeiros direciona sua obra ao público infanto-juvenil, através de uma linguagem simples, metrificada, que facilita a compreensão e a fixação dessas narrativas, tão importantes para a cultura dos povos da Antiguidade.

This article argues that Machiavelli’s description of reading Dante and Ovid, in his letter to Francesco Vettori of 10 December 1513, illuminates some of the most surprising and scandalous sections of The Prince. Beginning with Machiavelli’s quotation of Paradiso 5 in the letter to Vettori, this study investigates how Machiavelli uses the literary works of Dante and Ovid to craft several of his most distinctive arguments on the problem of vows, value of violence, and legitimacy of deception. It argues that the reading of these literary works constitutes a crucial, but often overlooked, component of intellectual history.

This article treats the medieval allegorizations of the Ovidian myth of Actaeon,
focusing on Bersuire's treatment in his Ovidius Moralizatus. This work is important
because it reunites all allegorical readings of Metamorphoses and Bersuire presents them
well organized, following the Ovidian model. It is often not well differenced from the
Ovide Moralisé. This is the reason why it is important to emphasize that they are neither
the same work nor a translation of the same text. I first offer a brief introduction to
the Ovidius moralizatus, followed by a summary of the mythical story of Diana and
Actaeon, based on the text from the Metamorphoses. Then, the passages related to this
story in the Ovide Moralisé and the Ovidius Moralizatus are analyzed. Finally, I put
forward very shortly the conclusions obtained in the study and the comparison between
these two works: Bersuire represents the highest point of the allegorical tradition of the
Metamorphoses and he knew all the interpretations given by previous authors, which he
integrated into his work and renewed.