Ovid in Love: Ovid's Amores [Hardcover]

Ovid (Author), Guy Lee (Author, Translator), John Ward (Illustrator)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 127 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (December 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312268912
• ISBN-13: 978-0312268916
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,239,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Today's Ovid - Timeless Love, February 1, 2001

By 

Harold C. Cannon (Greenfield Center, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ovid in Love: Ovid's Amores (Hardcover)

Just in time for Valentine's Day comes the timeless gift of Ovid's handbook on love. The ways of man and maid have not changed in the intervening two millennia, and Guy Lee makes that clear with this light, witty, and appropriately naughty version of these love poems. And his loyalty to the original Latin is beyond reproach. As the translator of Ovid's Heroides (Dutton, 1972), I can attest to the difficulty of the task, but Lee carries it off without apparent effort. The illustrations add a vivacious charm and remind the reader that these poems are classics in both the popular and the traditional sense of the term. If you haven't time to brush up your Latin, or you never had any, this book is the answer!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Latin translation that keeps you awake instead of the opposite, June 22, 2007

By 

Antonia Balvanz "nia_74656" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ovid in Love: Ovid's Amores (Hardcover)

This particular translation, by Guy Lee, captures the fluidity, idioms, and casual attitude of Ovid's Latin and puts it into equally casual, idiomatic, and fluid English. An enjoyable read, with fluid and casual illustrations as well.

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful erotic illustrations but not my favorite translation., December 1, 2011

By 

Teop Tnomrev "Goodpuppy" (Vermont, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ovid in Love: Ovid's Amores (Hardcover)

The Amores are filled with lust, sex, explicitness, self-deprecating humor, rape, cheating, etc... This is the Rome you've all heard about; the culture painted on the walls of Pompeii.

Though I prefer Marlowe's, Lee's translation of the Amores is complete. Lee's translation is also accompanied by some of the most erotic and sexiest illustrations of any of the books reviewed.

The only issue I have is a perennial one with me. I don't like free verse translations of traditional poetry. Translate the form as well as the meaning. Lee's verse, to me, just feels too prosy and lazy, lacking that extra zing that meter can give. Ovid wrote his own verse in Elegaic Couplets using quantitative meter.

Nevertheless, the book is beautifully presented.

For this and a host of other reviews of erotic books, visit PoemShape and click on Books, Criticism and Reviews.