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The most important contribution of recent scholarship to the understanding of the Amores is the study of Ovid’s treatment of the genre and of his literary predecessors. The terms parody, travesty, and reductio ad absurdum are not new, but they need some further definition or amplification. What is not in doubt is that the Amores are basically a light-hearted reworking of the genre. They are not the product of personal emotion, nor do they have any immediate relationship to the life of the poet; and many of the questions which in the past engaged the student of love-elegy (such as morality, sincerity, autobiography) are thus unimportant or irrelevant. Some scholars still insist that Corinna was a real person; but in a parody this is unlikely, and some of Ovid’s own references (Am. 2. 17. 29 f., Ars. 3. 538) seem to cast doubt on her existence.
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Footnotes
1.
Our evidence for the text of Ovid’s amatory works has been augmented by the rediscovery of the manuscript Y (Hamiltonensis), once wrongly catalogued as being of the fourteenth century but now recognized as Carolingian; see F. Munari, Il codice Hamilton 471 di Ovidio (Rome, 1965). The standard text of the amatory works is that of E. J. Kenney (Oxford, 1961; corr. edn. 1965), on which see G. P. Goold, HSCPh 69 (1965), 1–107; for Kenney’s subsequent remarks on Y see CR 16 (1966), 267-71. Goold’s views on the text of Am. have now been incorporated into his revision of Showerman’s Loeb text (London, 1914; 2nd edn. 1977). A. G. Lee’s English translation (London, 1968) is a brilliant tour de force. The only English commentary is J. A. Barsby’s on Am. I (Oxford, 1973); see also the editions of P. Brandt (Leipzig, 1911; repr. Hildesheim, 1963), F. Munari (Florence, 1951; 5th edn. 1970), W. Marg and R. Harder (Munich, 1957; 4th edn. 1976), and F. W. Lenz (Berlin, 1965; 3rd edn. 1976). Apart from the relevant chapters of Fränkel, Wilkinson, D’Elia, and Frécaut (reference to which is assumed in each chapter of this Survey) there are good recent discussions of Am. by Lee and Du Quesnay; see also Reitzenstein, Otis (1), and Marg. There is a bibliography for Am. in Munari’s edition (xxxix ff., 221 ff.) and for the amatory works as a whole in Zinn, 100 ff.
References
Notes
2. e.g. de Saint Denis, 185 ff., and Green, P., Essays in Antiquity (London, 1960), 118 Google Scholar ff. On the whole question see Sullivan, J. P., TAPhA 92 (1961), 522 Google Scholar ff., and Williams, 538 ff.
3. On the relationship between life and literature in Roman personal poetry see Sullivan, J. P., Arion 1:3 (1962), 34 Google Scholarf.; Williams, G., Horace (Oxford, 1972), 1 Google Scholarf.; and Rudd, 145 ff. The pendulum is swinging away from the over-rigid application of the persona theory, especially for poets like Propertius and Horace; it remains essentially valid for Ovid.
4. On Ovid’s use of Propertius see Morgan, K., Ovid’s Art of Imitation: Propertius in the Amores (Leiden, 1977)Google Scholar; cf.Berman, K., CPh 67 (1972), 170-7Google Scholar. Neumann, R., Qua Ratione Ovidius in Amoribus Scribendis Properti Elegiis Usus Sit (Diss. Göttingen, 1919)Google Scholar, is still useful for his compilation of parallels; see also Zingerle, i. 109 ff., and Ganzenmüller, 292 ff.
5. See e.g. Copley, F. O., Exclusus Amator (Baltimore, 1956), 113 Google Scholarff., on Am. 1. 6 and Prop. 1. 16; Quinn, K., Latin Explorations (London, 1963), 239 Google Scholarff., on Am. 2. 11 and Prop. 1. 8; and Courtney, E., BICS 16 (1969), 80 Google Scholarff., on Am. 1. 8 and Prop. 4. 5.
6. On Ovid’s relation to earlier elegy and its Greek sources see Day, A. A., The Origins of Latin Love Elegy (Oxford, 1938 Google Scholar; repr. Hildesheim, 1972) and Luck, G., The Latin Love Elegy (London, 1959; 2nd edn. 1969)Google Scholar. For his echoes of Catullus and Tibullus see Zingerle, i. 3 5 ff., 54 ff., and Ganzenmüller, 279 ff. On his adaptation of the Callimachean apologia see Wimmel, 295 ff.; for his burlesque of the ‘usefulness of poetry to win one’s mistress’ theme see Stroh, 141 ff.
7. See Rand, 12.
8. On 1. 3 see Curran, L. C., CPh 61 (1966), 47-9Google Scholar; on 1. 7 see Khan, H. A., Latomus 25 (1966), 880-94Google Scholar (cf. Fränkel, 17 ff.); on 3. 14 see Lee, A. G., Gnomon 32 (1960), 518 Google Scholar ( cf.Lenz, F. W., S1FC 12 (1935), 227-35Google Scholar; Fränkel, 30 f.; and Luck, The Latin Love Elegy, 173 ff.).
9. See Connor, P. J., Ramus 3 (1974), 18–40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10. On the Ovidian coda see Parker, D., Arion 8 (1969), 80–97 Google Scholar.
11. On structure see Marg, 302 ff.; Williams, 514 ff.; and especially Lörcher, G., Dey Aufbau der drei Bücher von Ovids Amores (Amsterdam, 1975)Google Scholar.
12. On these aspects of Ovid’s style see Frécaut, 25—171.
13. Pichon, R., Index Verborum Amatoriorum (Paris, 1902 Google Scholar; repr. Hildesheim, 1966), provides a convenient guide to the vocabulary of the elegists. Donnet, D., LEC 33 (1965), 253 Google Scholar—79, shows that Ovid makes much less use of ‘emotional’ words than the other elegists. On new coinages see Linse; on registers of vocabulary see in general Axelson, and for an example Curran, L. C., Phoenix 18 (1964), 314—19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on 1. 10.
14. For echoes of Horace see Zingerle, iii. 9 ff.; for echoes of Virgil see Zingerle, ii. 48 ff., and Döpp, 13 ff.
15. On metrical matters see Platnauer and Wilkinson, 27 ff. Drexler, H., Philologus 109 (1965), 219—45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, demonstrates the variety of possible pentameter patterns.
16. On similes see Washietl, Owen, and Wilkins.
17. So Du Quesnay, 42. See also the interesting discussion by Frécaut, 183 ff.
18. On the abortion poems see Watts, W. J., AClass 16 (1973), 89–101 Google Scholar.
19. On the politics of elegy see Sullivan, J. P., Arethusa 5 (1972), 17–34 Google Scholar; on 1. 15 see Stössl, F. in Festschrift Karl Vretska (Heidelberg, 1970), 250-75Google Scholar.