This collection of essays is devoted to the diversity of the conceptual and terminological definitions of the notion of the “absolute”. Absolute comprises both the concepts of the Western world related to God and the verbal constructions flowing from these ideas in the spheres of law, philosophy, linguistics, politics, medicine, literature, and arts. Over time, absolute and its neologisms have undergone various modifications, assuming the associated characteristics of syntactic ambiguity and inflation. Absolute can imply an increase in the degree of a quality attached to some object or phenomenon and can be used as either an adverbial modifier or a proper noun. In its appearances as a procedural term, absolute mostly conveys a negative connotation when evaluating some action. The question posed in this book is not what absolute is, but what possibilities exist with regard to perceiving and conceptualizing it in human terms, both historically and in the present.

Nulli sua forma manebat. The world of Ovid's Metamorphoses is marked by constant flux in which nothing keeps its original form. This book argues that Ovid uses the epic simile to capture states of unresolved identity - in the transition between human, animal and divine identity, as well as in the poem's textual ambivalence between genres and the negotiation of fiction and reality. In conjuring up a likeness, the mental image of the simile enters a dialectic of appearances in a visually complex and treacherous universe. Original and subtle close readings of episodes in the poem, from Narcissus to Adonis, from Diana's blush to the freeform dreams in the House of Sleep, trace the simile's potential for exploiting indeterminacy and immateriality. In its protean permutations the simile touches on the most profound issues of the poem - the nature of humanity and divinity and the essence of poetic creation.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a Latin reader designed to partner existing elementary Latin textbooks. The book features thirty compelling stories, graduated in difficulty and adapted from Ovid’s epic Metamorphoses into prose. The original poem contains many different stories united thematically by the transformation which occurs in all of them; the epic features romance, seduction, humour, violence, monsters, and misbehaving gods. Each chapter contains: a Latin passage adapted from the epic an accompanying vocabulary list a short commentary to help with translation a concise review of the specific grammar covered a brief comment on a literary aspect of the poem, or featured myth. Suitable for college students studying Latin at the elementary level, Ovid’s Metamorphoses is designed to be used alongside elementary Latin textbooks. Preserving Ovid’s language and highly vivid descriptions, this reader introduces students to the epic masterpiece, allows them to consolidate their understanding of Latin prose, and offers opportunities for literary discussion. Christine Albright is the 2020 recipient of the CAMWS Bolchazy Pedagogy Book Award.

Ovid's Metamorphosesis a weaving-together of classical myths, extending in time from the creation of the world to the death of Julius Caesar. This volume provides the Latin text of the first five books of the poem and the most detailed commentary available in English of these books.

Explores the relationship between power and the body. This investigation of power and the body is a brilliantly original account of the nature of force as it functions in religious rituals, sorcery, political relations, and other social domains. Laying the foundation for an "anthropology of forces", it is crucial reading for anyone interested in how bodies and power circulate in a range of human contexts and cultures. For Jose Gil the body, with its capacity to translate forces into signs, is the source of power. Analyzing the language of mime and gestures, comparing magical cures to psychiatric ones, contrasting the flayed body of Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" with the anatomical body in Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica, he develops a typology of metamorphoses of the body as they correspond to systems of signs. A major intervention that marks the first appearance of Gil's work in English, Metamorphoses of the Body gives us an entirely new way of looking at relationships between bodies, forces, politics, and people.

This play is based on David R. Slavitt's translation of The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Monologues.

Ideally suited to intermediate to advanced college-level students, The Student’s Ovid offers twenty-one selections from the Metamorphoses, with notes to aid translation and interpretation. The introduction includes an essay on Ovid’s life and works, an outline of the structure of the Metamorphoses, and tips on Latin poetic forms and usage. Accompanying each Latin passage is an introduction that provides background on the myths and their literary history, both in Ovid and in other classical authors. The detailed notes on each selection are designed to help students read and understand the Latin for themselves. Other special features of this book include: · a glossary of mythological characters · lists of stories grouped by theme to help teachers design courses to suit their students’ interests · discussions of the basic concepts of classical meter, Latin pronunciation, and accentuation · reference charts on the declension of Greek nouns to aid the reading of proper names · a select bibliography of translations and secondary studies

"It is the single most important work of poetry in ancient history" - M. L. Andres, author of 'A Simple but Effective Strategy for Success' & founder of The Block Bard. Ovid's 15-book epic, written in exquisite Latin hexameter, is a rollercoaster of a read. Beginning with the creation of the world, and ending with Rome in his own lifetime, the Metamorphoses drags the reader through time and space, from beginnings to endings, from life to death, from moments of delicious joy to episodes of depravity and abjection.The madness and chaos of some 250 stories, spanning around 700 lines of poetry per book, are woven together by the theme of metamorphosis or transformation. The artistic dexterity involved in pulling off this literary feat is testimony to Ovid's skill and ambition as a poet. This accomplishment also goes a long way in explaining the rightful place the Metamorphoses holds within the canon of classical literature, placed as it is beside other great epics of Mediterranean antiquity such as the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid.

From the bites and scratches of lovers and the threat of flogging that hangs over the comic slave, to murder, rape, dismemberment, and crucifixion, violence is everywhere in Latin literature. The contributors to this volume explore the manifold ways in which violence is constructed and represented in Latin poetry and prose from Plautus to Prudentius, examining the interrelations between violence, language, power, and gender, and the narrative, rhetorical, and ideological functions of such depictions across the generic spectrum. How does violence contribute to the pleasure of the text? Do depictions of violence always reinforce status-hierarchies, or can they provoke a reassessment of normative value-systems? Is the reader necessarily complicit with authorial constructions of violence? These are pressing questions both for ancient literature and for film and other modern media, and this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural studies as well as of the ancient world.