"The reasons for the conspicuous popularity of Ovid-his life as well as his works-at the turn of the new millennium bear investigation.... This book speaks of the new bodies assumed in the twentieth century by the poems and tales to which Ovid gave their classic form-including prominently the account of his own life, which has been hailed by many writers of our time as the archetype of exile.... I intend to suggest some of the reasons for Ovid's appeal to different writers and different generations."-from the PrefaceTheodore Ziolkowski approaches Ovid's Latin poetry as a comparatist, not as a classicist, and maintains that the contextualization of individual works helps place them in a larger tradition. Covering the period 1912-2002, Ovid and the Moderns deals with the reception of Ovid and of Ovid's works in literature. After beginning with a discussion of Giorgio de Chirico's Ariadne paintings of 1912 and the Hofmannsthal-Strauss opera Ariadne auf Naxos, Ziolkowski considers European literary landmarks from the High Modernism of Joyce, Kafka, Mandelstam, and Pound, by way of the mid-century exiles, to postmodernism and the century's end, when a surge of interest in Ovid was fueled by a new generation of translations. One of Ziolkowski's conclusions is that the popularity of Ovid alternates in a regular rhythm and for definable reasons with that of Virgil.

About the Author

Theodore Ziolkowski is Class of 1900 Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He is the author most recently of Hesitant Heroes: Private Inhibition, Cultural Crisis and Clio the Romantic Muse: Historicizing the Faculties in Germany (both from Cornell). His many other books include Virgil and the Moderns, The Mirror of Justice, and The Sin of Knowledge.

Reviews

Ziolkowski hails a new Ovidian age, a revival that he traces... to the eve of WWI.... But Ovid enters more directly into modern literature in the person of James Joyce's Stephen Daedalus.... Ziolkowski uncovers a daunting profusion of writings of Ovidian inspiration and, as usual, treats the reader to a great banquet of themes and titles to be perused in further readings.

* Choice *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the Robert Motherwell Book Award (Dedalu.



Book Information
ISBN 9780801442742
Author Theodore Ziolkowski
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm