Ovid's Metamorphoses

This fresh translation revives the politics and power at play in classical mythology's foremost source Centuries of conservative translators have robbed the Metamorphoses of its subversive force. In this boldly lyrical translation, C. Luke Soucy revives the magnum opus of Rome's most clever and creative poet, faithfully matching the epic's wit and style while confronting the sexuality, violence, and politics so many previous translations have glossed over. Soucy's powerful version breathes new life into Ovid's mythic world, where canonical power dynamics are challenged from below to drain heroes of their heroism, give victims their say, and reveal an earth holier than heaven. Incorporating the latest scholarship alongside annotations, illustrations, and glossary, this edition brings fresh insights to both returning and new readers.

This fresh translation revives the politics and power at play in classical mythology's foremost source Centuries of conservative translators have robbed the Metamorphoses of its subversive force. In this boldly lyrical translation, C. Luke Soucy revives the magnum opus of Rome's most clever and creative poet, faithfully matching the epic's wit and style while confronting the sexuality, violence, and politics so many previous translations have glossed over. Soucy's powerful version breathes new life into Ovid's mythic world, where canonical power dynamics are challenged from below to drain heroes of their heroism, give victims their say, and reveal an earth holier than heaven. Incorporating the latest scholarship alongside annotations, illustrations, and glossary, this edition brings fresh insights to both returning and new readers.

The greatest single narration of what the mythic world of antiquity looked, thought, and felt like at its climax in a striking translation. In this tour de force, all the classic tales of Western mythology come to life. With 15 ills. "Charles Boer has reshaped the Metamorphoses in a way Olson, Zukofsky, and Pound would have approved of, making us see the poem's violence, turbulence, and angular strangeness. Every age refinds the classics in its own way: Boer sees Ovid's primitive energy and gives us a poem we can place beside Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a harsher, more staccato, louder Ovid than were used to, but also a more vivid one."-Guy Davenport "This is the authentic Ovid, the feeling, the pulse, the mental and vocal style of a vanished people. Boer has found this hidden beat, and the eerie excitement in every line shows me what veils have lain between us and the ancients up till now . . . This is what the ancients were sitting still for, nothing less, of that I'm certain." -William Kotzwinkle

The greatest single narration of what the mythic world of antiquity looked, thought, and felt like at its climax in a striking translation. In this tour de force, all the classic tales of Western mythology come to life. With 15 ills. "Charles Boer has reshaped the Metamorphoses in a way Olson, Zukofsky, and Pound would have approved of, making us see the poem's violence, turbulence, and angular strangeness. Every age refinds the classics in its own way: Boer sees Ovid's primitive energy and gives us a poem we can place beside Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a harsher, more staccato, louder Ovid than were used to, but also a more vivid one."-Guy Davenport "This is the authentic Ovid, the feeling, the pulse, the mental and vocal style of a vanished people. Boer has found this hidden beat, and the eerie excitement in every line shows me what veils have lain between us and the ancients up till now . . . This is what the ancients were sitting still for, nothing less, of that I'm certain." -William Kotzwinkle