Editing Ovid (section)

===Criticism===
[[Image:Ovide moralisé.jpg|thumb|200px|A 1484 figure from ''Ovide Moralisé'', edition by Colard Mansion]]
Ovid's works have been interpreted in various ways over the centuries with attitudes that depended on the social, religious and literary contexts of different times. It is known that since his own lifetime, he was already famous and criticized. In the ''[[Remedia Amoris]]'', Ovid reports criticism from people who considered his books insolent.<ref>Ov. ''Rem''. VI, 6.</ref> Ovid responded to this criticism with the following:
<poem style="margin-left:2em">
Gluttonous Envy, burst: my name's well known already
it will be more so, if only my feet travel the road they've started.
But you're in too much of a hurry: if I live you'll be more than sorry:
many poems, in fact, are forming in my mind.<ref>Ov. ''Rem''. VI, 389-392. Translated by A. S. Kline and available in [http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/CuresforLove.htm Ovid: Cures for Love] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230123103155/https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/CuresforLove.php |date=23 January 2023 }} (2001).</ref>
</poem>

After such criticism subsided, Ovid became one of the best known and most loved Roman poets during the [[Middle Ages]] and the [[Renaissance]].<ref name="PeterXIII">See chapters II and IV in P. Gatti, Ovid in Antike und Mittelalter. Geschichte der philologischen Rezeption, Stuttgart 2014, {{ISBN|978-3515103756}}; Peter Green (trad.), ''The poems of exile: Tristia and the Black Sea letters'' ([[University of California Press]], 2005), p. xiii. {{ISBN|0520242602|978-0520242609}}</ref>

Writers in the Middle Ages used his work as a way to read and write about sex and violence without orthodox "scrutiny routinely given to commentaries on the Bible".<ref>Robert Levine, "Exploiting Ovid: Medieval Allegorizations of the Metamorphoses", ''Medioevo Romanzo'' XIV (1989), pp. 197–213.</ref> In the Middle Ages the voluminous {{ill|Ovide moralisé|fr|L'Ovide moralisé|nl|Ovide moralisé|italics=yes|lt=Ovide moralisé}}, a French work that moralizes 15 books of the ''Metamorphoses'', was composed. This work then influenced [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]]. Ovid's poetry provided inspiration for the Renaissance idea of [[Renaissance humanism|humanism]], and more specifically, for many Renaissance painters and writers.

Likewise, [[Arthur Golding]] moralized his own translation of the full 15 books, and published it in 1567. This version was the same version used as a supplement to the original Latin in the Tudor-era grammar schools that influenced such major Renaissance authors as [[Christopher Marlowe]] and [[William Shakespeare]]. Many non-English authors were heavily influenced by Ovid's works as well. [[Michel de Montaigne|Montaigne]], for example, alluded to Ovid several times in his ''[[Essais]]'', specifically in his comments on ''Education of Children'' when he says:

{{blockquote|The first taste I had for books came to me from my pleasure in the fables of the ''Metamorphoses'' of Ovid. For at about seven or eight years of age I would steal away from any other pleasure to read them, inasmuch as this language was my mother tongue, and it was the easiest book I knew and the best suited by its content to my tender age.<ref>[[Michel de Montaigne]], ''The complete essays of Montaigne'' (translated by Donald M. Frame), [[Stanford University Press]] 1958, p. 130. {{ISBN|0804704864|978-0804704861}}</ref>}} [[Miguel de Cervantes]] also used the ''Metamorphoses'' as a platform of inspiration for his prodigious novel ''[[Don Quixote]].'' Ovid is both praised and criticized by Cervantes in his ''Don Quixote'', where he warns against satires that can exile poets, as happened to Ovid.<ref>Frederick A. De Armas, ''Ovid in the Age of Cervantes'' (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), pp. 11–12.</ref>

[[File:Eugène Delacroix - Ovide chez les Scythes (1859).jpg|thumb|280px|[[Eugène Delacroix|Delacroix]], ''[[Ovid among the Scythians]]'', 1859. [[National Gallery (London)]].]]

In the 16th century, some [[Jesuit]] schools of [[Portugal]] cut several passages from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. While the Jesuits saw his poems as elegant compositions worthy of being presented to students for educational purposes, they also felt his works as a whole might corrupt students.<ref>Agostinho de Jesus Domingues, ''Os Clássicos Latinos nas Antologias Escolares dos Jesuítas nos Primeiros Ciclos de Estudos Pré-Elementares No Século XVI em Portugal'' (Faculdade de Letras da [[Universidade do Porto]], 2002), [[Porto]], pp. 16–17.</ref> The Jesuits took much of their knowledge of Ovid to the Portuguese colonies. According to {{interlanguage link|Serafim Leite|pt}} (1949), the ''[[ratio studiorum]]'' was in effect in [[Colonial Brazil]] during the early 17th century, and in this period Brazilian students read works like the ''[[Epistulae ex Ponto]]'' to learn [[Latin]] [[grammar]].<ref>Serafim da Silva Leite, ''História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil''. [[Rio de Janeiro]], Instituto Nacional do Livro, 1949, pp. 151–52 – Tomo VII.</ref>

In the 16th century, Ovid's works were criticized in England. The [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] and the [[Bishop of London]] ordered that a contemporary translation of Ovid's love poems be [[Bishops' Ban of 1599|publicly burned in 1599]]. The [[Puritan]]s of the following century viewed Ovid as a [[pagan]], thus as an [[immoral]] influence.<ref>Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', Alan H. F. Griffin, ''Greece & Rome'', Second Series, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Apr. 1977), pp. 57–70. Cambridge University Press.</ref> [[John Dryden]] composed a famous translation of the ''Metamorphoses'' into stopped rhyming couplets during the 17th century, when Ovid was "refashioned [...] in its own image, one kind of Augustanism making over another".<ref name="PeterXIII" />

The [[Romanticism|Romantic movement]] of the 19th century, in contrast, considered Ovid and his poems "stuffy, dull, over-formalized and lacking in genuine passion".<ref name="PeterXIII" /> Romantics might have preferred his poetry of exile.<ref>Peter Green (trad.), ''The poems of exile: Tristia and the Black Sea letters'' (University of California Press, 2005), p. xiv. {{ISBN|0520242602|978-0520242609}}</ref> The picture ''[[Ovid among the Scythians]]'', painted by [[Eugène Delacroix|Delacroix]], portrays the last years of the poet in exile in [[Scythia]], and was seen by [[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]], [[Théophile Gautier|Gautier]] and [[Edgar Degas]].<ref>"Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2007–2008", in [[The Metropolitan Museum of Art]] ''Bulletin'', v. 66, no. 2 (Fall, 2008).</ref> Baudelaire took the opportunity to write a long essay about the life of an exiled poet like Ovid.<ref>Timothy Bell Raser, ''The simplest of signs: Victor Hugo and the language of images in France'', 1850–1950 (University of Delaware Press, 2004), p. 127. {{ISBN|0874138671|978-0874138672}}</ref> This shows that the exile of Ovid had some influence in 19th-century Romanticism since it makes connections with its key concepts such as [[wildness]] and the [[Genius|misunderstood genius]].<ref>Matt Cartmill, ''A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History'', Harvard University Press, 1996, pp. 118–19. {{ISBN|0674937368}}</ref>

The exile poems were once viewed unfavorably in Ovid's oeuvre.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/poemsofexiletris00ovid|url-access=registration|title=The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters|page=xxxvi|author=Ovid|translator-last=Green|translator-first=Peter|publisher=University of California Press|date=2005|isbn=978-0520931374}}</ref> They have enjoyed a resurgence of scholarly interest in recent years, though critical opinion remains divided on several qualities of the poems, such as their intended audience and whether Ovid was sincere in the "recantation of all that he stood for before".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ycvUAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2|title=Ovid Revisited: The Poet in Exile|page=2|last=Claassen|first=Jo-Marie|publisher=A&C Black|date=2013|isbn=978-1472521439|access-date=14 March 2017|archive-date=23 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230123103144/https://books.google.com/books?id=ycvUAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1992, classical scholar Amy Richlin published an influential article critiquing the prevalence of rape within Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'',<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Marguerite |date=2016-09-13 |title=Guide to the classics: Ovid's Metamorphoses and reading rape |url=https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-ovids-metamorphoses-and-reading-rape-65316 |access-date=2025-02-01 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}}</ref> and there has been renewed focus on sexual assault within Ovid's poetry since the [[MeToo movement|#MeToo Movement]] in 2017.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Waldman |first=Katy |date=2018-02-12 |title=Reading Ovid in the Age of #MeToo |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reading-ovid-in-the-age-of-metoo |access-date=2025-02-01 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref> In the 21st century, there have been several feminist reinterpretations of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' which directly or indirectly criticize his treatment of women in his texts. [[Ali Smith]]'s novel ''[[Girl Meets Boy]]'' (2007), published as part of the [[Canongate Myth Series]], reimagines the lesbian relationship between Iphis and Ianthe in Book 9 of the ''Metamorphoses''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Fitzgerald |first=Mary |date=2008-09-27 |title=Girl Meets Boy |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/sep/28/fiction3 |access-date=2025-02-01 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}</ref> [[Madeline Miller|Madeleine Miller's]] novella ''Galatea'' (2013) is a retelling of a passage from Book 10 of the ''Metamorphoses'', in which sculptor [[Pygmalion (mythology)|Pygmalion]] carves a statue (Galatea) and falls in love with her after she is brought to life by the gods.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Madeleine|title=Galatea|date=2013|publisher=Bloomsbury Paperbacks|isbn=978-1526656223}}</ref> In ''Galatea'', Miller imagines Galatea grappling with her identity as a statue-turned-woman and gives her the space to exhibit her resilience and resistance to her husband's oppressive control. In [[Fiona Benson (poet)|Fiona Benson]]'s Forward Prize-winning poetry anthology ''Vertigo and Ghost'' (2019),<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hay |first=Emily |date=2019-10-20 |title=Fiona Benson wins Forward prize with Greek myth poems for #MeToo age |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/20/fiona-benson-wins-forward-prize-greek-myth-poems-metoo |access-date=2025-02-01 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> the poet experiments with different forms to represent Ovid's depictions of the female victims of Zeus' rape and sexual violence in the ''Metamorphoses'', including [[Danaë]], [[Semele]], [[Cyane]] and [[Io (mythology)|Io]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Benson|first=Fiona|title=Vertigo and Ghost|date=2019|publisher=Jonathan Cape|isbn=978-1787330818}}</ref> [[Nina MacLaughlin]] likewise focused on the theme of sexual assault in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' for her collection of short stories, ''Wake Siren'' (2019).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Roberts |first=Chloe Garcia |title=Wake, Siren |url=https://www.harvardreview.org/book-review/wake-siren/ |access-date=2025-02-01 |website=Harvard Review |language=en-US}}</ref>