Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Playing Gods : Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Politics of Fiction / Andrew Feldherr.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2010]Copyright date: ©2011Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resource (384 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691138145
  • 9781400836543
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 873/.01 22
LOC classification:
  • PA6519.M9 F45 2010
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One: Fiction and Empire -- Chapter 1: Metamorphosis and Fiction -- Chapter 2: Wavering Identity -- Part Two: Spectacle -- Chapter 3: Homo Spectator: Sacrifice and the Making of Man -- Chapter 4: Poets in the Arena -- Chapter 5: Philomela Again? -- Part Three: Ovid and the Visual Arts -- Chapter 6: Faith in Images -- Chapter 7: "Songs the Greater Image" -- Conclusion -- References -- Index of Passages Cited -- General Index
Summary: This book offers a novel interpretation of politics and identity in Ovid's epic poem of transformations, the Metamorphoses. Reexamining the emphatically fictional character of the poem, Playing Gods argues that Ovid uses the problem of fiction in the text to redefine the power of poetry in Augustan Rome. The book also provides the fullest account yet of how the poem relates to the range of cultural phenomena that defined and projected Augustan authority, including spectacle, theater, and the visual arts. Andrew Feldherr argues that a key to the political as well as literary power of the Metamorphoses is the way it manipulates its readers' awareness that its stories cannot possibly be true. By continually juxtaposing the imaginary and the real, Ovid shows how a poem made up of fictions can and cannot acquire the authority and presence of other discursive forms. One important way that the poem does this is through narratives that create a "double vision" by casting characters as both mythical figures and enduring presences in the physical landscapes of its readers. This narrative device creates the kind of tensions between identification and distance that Augustan Romans would have felt when experiencing imperial spectacle and other contemporary cultural forms. Full of original interpretations, Playing Gods constructs a model for political readings of fiction that will be useful not only to classicists but to literary theorists and cultural historians in other fields.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400836543

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One: Fiction and Empire -- Chapter 1: Metamorphosis and Fiction -- Chapter 2: Wavering Identity -- Part Two: Spectacle -- Chapter 3: Homo Spectator: Sacrifice and the Making of Man -- Chapter 4: Poets in the Arena -- Chapter 5: Philomela Again? -- Part Three: Ovid and the Visual Arts -- Chapter 6: Faith in Images -- Chapter 7: "Songs the Greater Image" -- Conclusion -- References -- Index of Passages Cited -- General Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

This book offers a novel interpretation of politics and identity in Ovid's epic poem of transformations, the Metamorphoses. Reexamining the emphatically fictional character of the poem, Playing Gods argues that Ovid uses the problem of fiction in the text to redefine the power of poetry in Augustan Rome. The book also provides the fullest account yet of how the poem relates to the range of cultural phenomena that defined and projected Augustan authority, including spectacle, theater, and the visual arts. Andrew Feldherr argues that a key to the political as well as literary power of the Metamorphoses is the way it manipulates its readers' awareness that its stories cannot possibly be true. By continually juxtaposing the imaginary and the real, Ovid shows how a poem made up of fictions can and cannot acquire the authority and presence of other discursive forms. One important way that the poem does this is through narratives that create a "double vision" by casting characters as both mythical figures and enduring presences in the physical landscapes of its readers. This narrative device creates the kind of tensions between identification and distance that Augustan Romans would have felt when experiencing imperial spectacle and other contemporary cultural forms. Full of original interpretations, Playing Gods constructs a model for political readings of fiction that will be useful not only to classicists but to literary theorists and cultural historians in other fields.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2021)