Why did ovid write metamorphoses

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Curriculum Details

Anchor standard:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Grade level standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.9: Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.7: Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).

Born near Rome in 43 BCE, Ovid studied rhetoric to prepare for a ca

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Danielle Lee

OVID

Publius Ovidius Naso, more commonly known as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus Caesar in the early Roman empire. Born into a wealthy equestrian family, his father desired for him in his studies to focus on law and rhetoric; this would have no doubt come in handy later in the pursuit of an impressive political career as expected for Romans of Ovid’s class and rank. Instead, Ovid set aside the minor public posts he did hold early in his life to become one of the most prominent Roman poets we know of today.

Much of Ovid’s body of work deviated from the tradition of existing literature in Rome. For example, the narrative of Metamorphoses—considered to be Ovid’s magnum opus—follows a main theme of love and transformation; in contrast, Virgil’s Aeneid extolled Roman virtues such as piety, and featured a hero with whom the emperor could be identified with. Other prominent works by Ovid include Amores and Ars Amatoria, both of which touch upon controversial subjects that were considered to be morally corrupting to the reader;

Who was Ovid?

Bernadine Corrigan: Ovid was a poet born in 43BC, the year after the assassination of Julius Caesar. He came from a quite wealthy family and as a young man moved to Rome for his education, as was the standard thing at the time. He toured Greece in a mini Grand Tour, which was another thing that wealthy Roman men would have done. Although he took a few jobs in the judiciary, he decided not to go into public life and instead became a poet, and a very successful poet at that.

Very shortly after the 'Metamorphoses' was first published, or perhaps even the first draft was published, we’re not quite sure, Ovid was suddenly exiled from Rome. [Emperor] Augustus made the announcement himself and exiled Ovid to a place called Tomis – in modern-day Romania on the Black Sea – which was frankly a dump.

It was awful. No one went to Tomis, it was right on the edge of the Empire. The climate was terrible, there was no culture there, and Ovid was exiled and his books were banned. We don’t know why this happened. The only evidence we have is what Ovid himself tells us, and he tel

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