The Metamorphosis of Ovid: From Chaucer to Ted Hughes

The Roman poet Ovid's best-known poem, the "Metamorphoses, " is one of the cornerstones of Western culture and the principal source for all the most famous myths of Greece and Rome. This book represents the first account of six centuries of Ovidianism, from Chaucer to Ted Hughes, showing how the poem has proved a continuing inspiration for poets, composers, and painters. In every period writers have found their own Ovid and been drawn to a different aspect of his art, and this book demonstrates that Ovidianism is a complex and pervasive phenomenon within English literature.