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Amores || Ars Amatoria|| Metamorphoses || Shakespeare and Ovid
random note: Naso means nose . . . one of Ovid's ancestors probably had a very interesting one . . .
-He was born in 43 BC in Sulmo against the background of Civil War. Julius Caesar had just been killed the year before.
-Ovid was well educated in Latin and Greek
-He began a legal career, but abandoned it for poetry
-He was exiled to Tomis by Augustus (it's like Will Smith being exiled to Antarica) for a poem and a mistake. It is likely that the poem is Ars Amatoria, the Art of Love.
Three of Ovid's most noted works are the Amores (The Loves), the Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), and his last poem possibly written in exile, the Metamorphoses. Although I have read several parts of the Amores and Metamorphoses, my favorite, and area of expertise is the Ars Amatoria, so do not be shocked that my description of that section is much longer than the other two.
Amores
The Amores are a collection of five books written in elegiac meter.
Unlike his contemporaries who spoken of undying love for a single mistress,
Ovid talks about falling in love with love itself. He claims it is
the state of being in love that he is enamored with, and as for the mistress,
one should have as many as possible. There is a tension in his works
between the poet and the lover. Modern scholars have interpreted
this in various ways, but most believe that Ovid is not the speaker/lover
of these works. However, Ovid did marry three separate times . .
. the notion that he is a playboy is probably not too exaggerated . . .
Ars Amatoria
The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) is a mock didactic poem in three parts.
Like the didactic poetry of his day, the poem seeks to teach. But
rather than teaching about agriculture or pottery making, Ovid aims to
teach people how to love. The first book tells a man who to seduce
a woman; the second instructs a man how to keep her; and the third tells
a woman how to seduce a man. According to Ovid's narrator, the third
book was written because his first books were so popular that the women demanded
advice from the "master of love" as well. The advice range from where
to go to find women to how to look when trying to attract women.
In this so-called seduction manual, Ovid uses examples drawn from mythology,
and put in new twists in them. Despite of the light tone taken by
Ovid through out the poem, a political agenda seems to merge from his work.
Ovid is writing against the background of Augustan legislation. After
years of Civil War, the moral fiber of society is in chaos. Augustus
tries to remedy this by imposing various social laws, most importantly,
he made adultery a public crime. By writing a poem that seemingly
advocate promiscuous behavior, Ovid is confronting Augustus's policies
head on. In one his passages, he talks about Romulus and the rape of
the Sabine women. Unlike Livy, a contemporary writer, who justifies
Romulus's actions, Ovid tells of the act as one of pure lust. Ovid
even writes of how fear in the face of the Sabine women adds to their beauty.
This particular episode is one of the first acts depicted in the Ars Amatoria,
and it is probably highly political and calculated. Augustus identified
himself with Romulus, and when he was considering changing his name (originally,
Augustus was named Octavian) he considered Romulus. Despite deciding
against it (because Romulus was the first King of Rome, an association
that Augustus did not want) he still looked to emulate Romulus. By
demeaning Romulus to a mere rapist, Ovid is also demeaning Augustus.
Perhaps Ovid is exposing a side of Augustus that few ever see, a side that
is not are moral as he portrays himself to be. 
Modern scholars have
also studied the Ars Amatoria to separate the somewhat foolish narrator
who claims to be a master of love and Ovid himself. One of the dominate
hint that Ovid provides that tells us that he does not believe that love
can be taught is the story of Dedalus and his son Icarus. Unlike
the rest of the mythology that Ovid uses and distorts to fit his own methods,
he leaves this episode alone in tact as it is commonly told. There
is also nothing sexual in this episode. Making it stand out from
the rest of his work. Here, Ovid tells of how the famous inventor,
Dedalus, fashions wings to free himself from Minos the king of Crete.
Although he tells his young son Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, Icarus does not listen and the
heat from the sun melts his wings, causing him to plunge to his death. If even
the genius inventor Dedalus cannot teach his son how to fly, how can the
"master of love" teach anyone how to love. I personally believe Ovid's
Ars Amatoria is a mockery thrown into Augustus face, and Augustus is too
smart not to notice . . .
Metamorphoses
I have only read parts of Metamorphoses. As far as I can tell,
its a poem that deals with transformations. Every single tale details
with some kind of transformation, usually bad. These pages are also
filled with rapes. Amy Richlin, a modern scholar have written a very
interesting paper on it. She talks about how we read these rapes
is a reflection of our society. If you are interested in learning
more, you can e-mail me and I can give you the bibliographical reference
to her paper.
Shakespeare and Ovid
I'm sure most of you knew that Shakespeare got his plays from other
people's ideas. His Titus Andronicus is probably based on a story
from Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Metamorphoses, Ovid tells the story
of Philomela, a young woman raped her sister's husband Tereus after her
sister bore him a son Itys. Tereus then cuts of Philomela's tongue
and keeps her captive in a cabin. When Philomela's sister Procne
discovers this, they kill Itys and then serve him to his father Tereus
in a pie. In Titus, the title character's arch enemy Tamora's sons
Demetrius and Chiron rape Titus's daughter Lavina and cuts off her tongue
and her hands. To avenge his daughter, Titus kills the rapists and
bakes them into a pie that is served to their mother Tamora. Given the
specificity of the cruelty, most likely Shakespeare based his play off
of Ovid . . . Once again we have proven that almost everything in
Western civilization came from the Romans.