The Metamorphoses of Ovid

It is savage and sophisticated, mischievous and majestic, witty and wicked. In its earthiness, its psychological acuity, it speaks over the centuries to our time. And with this new “fluid, readable, and accurate rendition” (Library Journal), the Metamorphoses for our age has been created. The Metamorphoses is a treasury of classical myths, filtered through the far from reverent sensibility of the Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C. – A.D. 17). It weaves together every major mythological story to display a dazzling array of miraculous metamorphoses, from the time chaos is transformed into order at the moment of creation, to the time when the soul of Julius Caesar is turned into a star and set in the heavens. Through the poetic artistry of Allen Mandelbaum, this glorious achievement of classical literature, whose influence is rivaled perhaps only by that of the Bible, is revealed anew. Declared the Bloomsburg, “Mandelbaum’s Ovid, like his Dante, is unlikely to be equalled for years to come.”