An exploration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses via close reading of selected episodes in Latin and longer sequences in translation. The focus this year will be on book 6, which contains some of the poem’s most engrossing and challenging episodes and centrally involves issues of gender, power, and the politics (broadly speaking) of narrative. Class time will be devoted to 1) getting comfortable with Ovid’s Latin (characteristic word orders, figures, etc.); 2) interpreting individual episodes read in Latin; and 3) exploring longer sequences read in translation. Requirements include preparation of ca. 100-150 lines of Latin each week (checked by regular quizzes), midterm and final exams, and two essays (one in-class, one at home).

Required texts are P. Ovidi Nasonis: Metamorphoses, ed. R. J. Tarrant (Oxford 2004) (hard copy recommended, but also available via the library website) plus one of the following translations: A. D. Melville (Oxford World Classics, 1986); M. Simpson (UMass., 2001), D. Raeburn (Penguin, 2004); or S. McCarter (Penguin, 2022).