For instance, Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe greatly influenced Romeo and Juliet, and moreover Shakespeare includes a send-p of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream). Most notably, Metamorphoses is widely considered to be Shakespeare's favorite literary work, as it influenced many of his plays. The work has also had a tremendous influence on other works of art, especially during the European Renaissance. Even today, this work is a favorite of those who study ancient life or languages. They were incredibly popular in their own time and for centuries afterwards.
The stories compiled in Metamorphoses are great in scope and in detail, covering everything from the creation of the universe to why mullberry trees have red berries. The collection is composed in dactylic hexameter, the classic meter of epic, and not in Ovid's customary elegiac couplets, the standard meter of love poetry. Indeed, Metamorphoses can be thought of as an epic about love. Ovid treats love differently in Metamorphoses than elsewhere in his oeuvre. Ovid does not believe that love conquers all or that love is always a positive thing, but he clearly believes that love changes people, for better or worse, and that love operates with an irrational power that cannot be simply ignored.
Most of the stories in Metamorphoses address the transformative power of love. As a poem, Ovid also saw Metamorphoses as an offering to the gods: he asked for their help in making the poem worthy of being dedicated to them and focused on the gods in his subject matter. Indeed, one might compare Metamorphoses to a modern-day collection of fables, though fables often have clear morals or meanings, which cannot be said of Ovid's ambiguous subjects. But, Metamorphoses is also a compilation of myths, some complimentary and some almost contradictory, that were well-known in Ovid's society.
"Metamorphoses" means transformations, and transformation is the governming theme of the text.
0 kommentar(er)
