The image of the poet in Ovid's Metamorphoses /

An astute and perceptive Latinist, Pavlock (Lehigh Univ.) scrutinizes four key portions (books 7, 8, 10, and 13) of Ovid's epic Metamorphoses, finding insightful reflections of the poet himself--surrogates like Narcissus, Daedalus, Medea, Orpheus, and Ulysses. Providing an exemplary close and deep reading, Pavlock leaves no stone unturned as she highlights the conflicted revisionist view of the work and its "constructed author." She explores Ovid's poetics, revealing imagery, plot generation, repetitions, the contrast between refined and inflated style, the reliability of the narrator's voice, and rhetorical strategies. The author argues that the instability of visual images is reflected in the Narcissus character and his demise, which she construes as an idealized elegiac image, subsuming allusions to the Amores. She uncovers problematic self-involvement in Orpheus's account of Venus and Adonis--making the bard unreliable--an undercutting theme cleverly developed in the Ulysses-Ajax rivalry. And Pavlock's discerning, powerful reading of Medea provides an original vision of this unquestionably and surprisingly modern figure. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. R. Cormier Longwood University