After Ovid: New Metamorphoses [Paperback]

Michael Hofmann (Editor), James Lasdun (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 1996

Ovid's Metamorphoses is one of the great works in classical literature, and a primary source for our knowledge of much of classic mythology, in which the relentless theme of transformation stands as a primary metaphor for the often cataclysmic dynamics of life itself. For this book, British poets Michael Hofmann and James Lasdun have invited more than forty leading English-language poets to create their own idiomatic contemporary versions of some of the most famous and notorious myths from the Metamorphoses.

Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe, Proserpina, Marsyas, Medea, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice--these and many other immortal tales are given fresh and startling life in exciting new versions. The contributors--among them Fleur Adcock, Amy Clampitt, Jorie Graham, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Lawrence Joseph, Kenneth Koch, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Les Murray, Robert Pinsky, Frederick Seidel, Charles Simic, and C. K. Williams--constitute an impressive roster of today's major poets. After Ovid is a powerful re-envisioning of a fundamental work of literature as well as a remarkable affirmation of the current state of poetry in English.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The editors commissioned 42 poets from America, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand to "translate, reinterpret, reflect on, or completely reimagine" Ovid's famous Metamorphoses. What results are updated versions of the classic history of transformations of humans and inanimate objects. In these versions, which are not literal translations but adaptations utilizing characters and themes from the original, the sophisticated hexameters and great length (over 12,000 lines) of Ovid's masterpiece give way to fable-narratives in widely varying free verse and rhymed modernist rhythms. There are brief, insightful commentaries and long, stylistic imitations. Ovid's worldliness, use of shock, unorthodox emphasis on extremes of psychological behavior, and, as the editors observe, "distinct cinematic qualities" appeal to the contemporary mind. The best of these adaptations (those by Alice Fulton and C.K. Williams) show an exuberant reinterpretation of the passion of Ovid's fabulous gods with a thoughtful application of ancient stories to contemporary life. For most collections.
Frank Allen, West Virginia State Coll., Institute
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"[This anthology aims] to play fast and loose with Ovid's text and themes just as he played fast and loose with the old myths. After Ovid is racy, memorable, and vividly contemporary. The themes are most certainly ours: sex-change, multiple rape, cross-dressing, the random cruelties of war. The poets re-imagine, reflect on, and generally reinterpret the originals--something of which Ovid himself would surely have approved. Reading Ovid in these versions, and even in the original, is a bit like a good evening at the cinema: rapid scene changes; sudden close-ups; unexpected shifts of attention."--The Economist

"The old magic has worked anew and several major figures have obviously found themselves hooked. . . . The contributors' list is a roll-call of remarkable distinction. . . . The effect is to bring Ovid from a dead to a living language."--The New Statesman & Society

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First American Ed. edition (April 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374524785
• ISBN-13: 978-0374524784
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Hofmann was born in 1957 in Freiburg, Germany, and came to England in 1961. He has published four volumes of poems and won a Cholmondeley Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for poetry. His translations have won many awards, including the Independent's Foreign Fiction Award, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the P.E.N./Book of the Month Club Translation Prize. His reviews and criticism are gathered in Behind the Lines (2001).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars These stories never age. They metamorphosize., July 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: After Ovid: New Metamorphoses (Hardcover)

A collection of stories that we grew up hearing, but with all new skin. These re-tellings give new blood to Ovid and infuse his timeless book with modern spirit. Give: Apollo and Daphne packs a punch with its Elivs-like god and neo-feminist victim. A bevy of talented writers prove that familiar plots do not have to retain their old luster but can be polished anew. After Ovid is a wonderful way to loose yourself in imagination as you see the familiar become at once perverse and natal and finally familiar again.