Jacobson, Miriam
TR 9:35 AM
Park Hall 145
Ovid's English Renaissance: Metamorphoses in stage, image, and page
In 16th and 17th century England the most widely read and studied classical author was the Roman poet Ovid, and the text boys were taught in grammar school--and girls with private tutors--in order to learn Latin was his outrageously thrilling, violent, humorous and bizarre poem The Metamorphoses, a series of ancient Greek and Roman myths of bodily transformation. This text and the other poetic works of Ovid deeply influenced some of the most famous writers and culture creators from the early modern period, not only in poetic adaptations of these stories, but in drama and printed, textile, and painted images. From the gory dark-humored tragedy of Shakepeare's Titus Andronicus (based on Ovid's Metamorphoses's Philomel) to the erotic comedy of Marlowe's Hero and Leander (based on Ovid's Heroides); from Shakespeare's serious poem about rape, knowledge, and regime change The Rape of Lucrece (based on Ovid's Fasti) to John Lyly's gender-bending and Queer-friendly forest romp Galatea (Iphis and Ianthe from Ovid's Metamorphoses), we will simultaneously examine Ovid's role in dominating and shaping early modern culture, and how early modern writers critiqued and responded to it.