This innovative study analyses the presence of Ovid in contemporary women's writing through a series of insightful case studies of prominent female authors, from Ali Smith, Marina Warner, and Marie Darrieussecq, to Alice Oswald, Saviana Stãnescu, and Yoko Tawada. Using Ovid in their engagements with a wide range of issues besetting our twenty-first century world - homelessness, refugees, the financial crisis, internet porn, anorexia, body image - these writers echo the poet's preoccupation in his own work with fleeting fame, shape-shifting, and the dangers of immediate gratification, and make evident that these concerns are not only quintessentially modern, but also peculiarly Ovidian. Moving beyond the concern of second-wave feminism with recovering silenced female voices and establishing a female perspective within canonical works, the volume places particular emphasis on the intersections between Ovid's imaginative universe and the political and aesthetic agenda of third-wave feminism. Focusing on its subjects' socially and politically charged re-shapings, re-imaginings, and receptions of Ovid, it not only demonstrates the extraordinary plasticity of his writing, but also of its myriad re-castings and re-contextualizations within contemporary culture (in terms of genre alone, the works discussed included translations, poetry, plays, novels, short stories, and memoirs). In so doing, it not only offers us a valuable perspective on the work of the selected female authors and a new and vital landmark in the history of Ovidian reception, but also reveals to us an Ovid who remains our contemporary and an enduring source of inspiration.

Uses adaptation and appropriation studies to explore early modern textual and theatrical metamorphoses of OvidApplies contemporary theoretical approaches, such as gender/queer/trans studies, feminist ecostudies, hauntology, rhizomatic adaptation, transmedialityUses adaptation studies in analyzing early modern transformations of OvidFocuses on the appropriations of "e;Ovid"e; (as an umbrella term for "e;all things Ovidian"e;) on the early modern English stageIncludes chapters on Shakespeare and Marlowe as well as other early modern dramatistsDid you know that Ovid was a multifaceted icon of lovesickness, endless change, libertinism, emotional torment and violence in early modern England? This is the first collection to use adaptation studies in connection with other contemporary theoretical approaches in analysing early modern transformations of Ovid. It provides innovative perspectives on the 'Ovids' that haunted the early modern stage, while exploring intersections between adaptation theory and gender/queer/trans studies, ecofeminism, hauntology, transmediality, rhizomatics and more. This book examines the multidimensional, ubiquitous role that Ovid and Ovidian adaptations played in English Renaissance drama and theatrical performance.

In Ovid and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England, Liz Oakley-Brown considers English versions of the Metamorphoses - a poem concerned with translation and transformation on a multiplicity of levels - as important sites of social and historical difference from the fifteenth to the early eighteenth centuries. Through the exploration of a range of canonical and marginal texts, from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus to women's embroideries of Ovidian myths, Oakley-Brown argues that translation is central to the construction of national and gendered identities.

A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid presents more than 30 original essays written by leading scholars revealing the rich diversity of critical engagement with Ovid’s poetry that spans the Western tradition from antiquity to the present day. Offers innovative perspectives on Ovid’s poetry and its reception from antiquity to the present day Features contributions from more than 30 leading scholars in the Humanities. Introduces familiar and unfamiliar figures in the history of Ovidian reception. Demonstrates the enduring and transformative power of Ovid’s poetry into modern times.

Ovid's Changing Worlds looks at the four most important English imitations of the Metamorphoses in the English Renaissance: the translations of Arthur Golding and George Sandys, Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion. It sheds new light on dealings with the classics in the period and shows that the emergence of English literature was a complex and fascinating process.