Intermediality in the Metamorphoses
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Martin T. Dinter
Martin T. Dinter Reading Roman Declamation: The Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian (De Gruyter 2015), as well asReading Roman Declamation: Calpurnius Flaccus (De Gruyter 2017), andThe Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy (2019). He has also published extensively on intermediality, especially with relation to Latin epic and elegy. His upcoming publications include a monograph on Cato the Elder and his reception, as well as two edited volumes on cultural memory in Ancient Rome.
Abstract
This article provides an intermedial re-reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, treating a wide range of passages from Echo and Narcissus in Book 2 to the final sphragis which rounds off Book 15. As its title indicates, the Metamorphoses is at heart a poem about transformations. It is therefore imbued with a sense of dynamism and volatility, which in turn renders it a fertile source of represented intermedial transposition. This chapter explores three processes relating to this wider concept: ‘creation’, where a medial product is woven, painted, or sculpted, ‘human-to-media transformations’, which provide a subversive take on intermediality due to their negative connotations, and ‘meta-intermediality’, through which Ovid comments on media and their narratological potential within the wider poem. By thus problematising medial communication, Ovid identifies and advocates a hierarchy of art forms based on their effectiveness as monumentalising devices: within this system, engravings – owing to their permanence – take precedence over woven or written products. This tendency comes to the fore in the final book of the Metamorphoses, in which Ovid links his poetry to the Fates’ records on ‘brass and solid iron’ (Ov. Met. 15.808–815). In so doing, he does not only assert the authority which his work possesses as a prophecy for Rome’s greatness, but also appoints himself as a renowned bard for the ages.
About the author
Martin T. Dinter is Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature at King’s College London. He has recently edited Reading Roman Declamation: The Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian (De Gruyter 2015), as well as Reading Roman Declamation: Calpurnius Flaccus (De Gruyter 2017), and The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy (2019). He has also published extensively on intermediality, especially with relation to Latin epic and elegy. His upcoming publications include a monograph on Cato the Elder and his reception, as well as two edited volumes on cultural memory in Ancient Rome.
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Introduction
- Sensorial Intermedialities in Roman Letters: Cicero, Horace, and Ovid
- Quotations in Roman Prose as Intermedial Phenomena
- Monumental Absences in Ancient Historiography
- Inscriptional Intermediality in Livy
- Intermediality in the Metamorphoses
- The Touch and Taste of War in Latin Battle Narrative
- Stories from the Frontier: Bridging Past and Present at Hadrian’s Wall
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index Rerum
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Introduction
- Sensorial Intermedialities in Roman Letters: Cicero, Horace, and Ovid
- Quotations in Roman Prose as Intermedial Phenomena
- Monumental Absences in Ancient Historiography
- Inscriptional Intermediality in Livy
- Intermediality in the Metamorphoses
- The Touch and Taste of War in Latin Battle Narrative
- Stories from the Frontier: Bridging Past and Present at Hadrian’s Wall
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index Rerum
