By Paul Murgatroyd

Description

This book contains 770 lines from Ars Amatoria, Books I and II, a full introduction on Ovid's life, 148 pages of vocabulary, and commentary that offers insights on Ovid's stylistic choices. The notes provide a wealth of information on Roman customs, mythology, history, and literary tradition.

Comments and Reviews

Ovid with Love by P. Murgatroyd is an aptly named selection of 770 lines from Ars Amatoria 1 and 2 and with its 23 page introduction on Ovid's life, Augustan and pre-Augustan love poetry, 148 pages of commentary and complete vocabulary, it is a potentially useful sixth-form reader.

The importance of stylistic and metrical features in Ovid's writing has led the author to comment fully on them over the first 92 lines and then, progressively, to leave it to the pupils to make their own investigation; notes on comprehension, and these always precede those on literary criticism, are detailed throughout; indeed at times one feels that there is overkill: e.g., 2, 431 (OCT) nam modo Threicio Borea, modo currimus Euro; on "Threicio" the note reads: Thrace was a cold wintry region to the North of Greece, and so in Greece the chill North Wind was often called ?Thracian? and described as having its home in Thrace (because it came from that direction).

However, as Murgatroyd points out, he has tried to bridge a number of levels in this edition and the notes, which are set separately at the end of the text, need be no more obtrusive than individually desired. There are advantages in being able to sample from two books of the Ars when the selection is as carefully made as this one and in criticizing the fullness of some notes one ought not to forget the plight of the weaker student.

— Greece & Rome