| The Face of Nature: Wit, Narrative, and Cosmic Origins in Ovid''s @quot;Metamorphoses@quot; Subjects: Ovid 43 B.C.–17 or 18 A.D. Metamorphoses; Latin wit and humor -- History and criticism; Epic poetry Latin -- History and criticism; Mythology Classical in literature; Cosmology Ancient in literature; Ovid 43 B.C–17 or 18 A.D. -- Style; Metamorphosi; In these reflections on the mercurial qualities of style in Ovid's Meta-morphoses , Garth Tissol contends that stylistic features of the ever-shifting narrative surface, such as wordplay, narrative disruption, and the self-conscious reworking of the poetic tradition, are thematically significant. It is the style that makes the process of reading the work a changing, transformative experience, as it both embodies and reflects the poem's presentation of the world as defined by instability and flux. Tissol deftly illustrates that far from being merely ornamental, style is as much a site for interpretation as any other element of Ovid's art. |