![]() She is careful to distinguish between classical mythology in general, and the myths Ovid tells not every myth, not even every metamorphosis, is Ovidian. Why were so many English poets attracted to Ovid's masterpiece, and to what features of that work were they attracted? Brown begins her attempt to answer these questions by isolating a set of distinctive characteristics-aesthetic detachment vivid depictions of passion (specifically, of "nonstandard" sexuality) and violence wit, including linguistic play and a love of the incongruous and a self-reflexivity manifested in such themes as the nature of fiction, art's relationship with nature, and a fascination with artists both human and divine. ![]() The result is, as she puts it, a series of "snapshots of English Ovidianism." In the work under review, Sarah Annes Brown considers the changes rung by English poets (and by an occasional prose writer) from Chaucer through Ted Hughes. Western art, literature, and music provide ample evidence that Ovid and his poem themselves fall in the latter category. ![]()
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