Classics

Ovid’s depiction of the House of Fama, the goddess of Rumour, in Book XII of the Metamorphoses illustrates a complex relationship between voice, identity and text. This
paper will argue that Ovid, through the House of Fama, reveals how the impossibility of
maintaining the integrity of corporeality is related to the implausibility of claiming authority over any literary text. Ovid uses the concept of the rumour to inscribe the
breakdown of the boundaries of the body and identity, in the context of the breakdown
of the unity of the literary text, revealing how the voice we call our own, that is central
to our sense of the singularity of the self, is made up of the voices of other people, and how the literary text is understood to be an unstable amalgamation of the voices of other authors.

This work explores ancient views of cosmogony and the material structure of the universe in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In particular it focuses on the way in which Ovid problematizes how we define myth and poetry versus science and philosophy. It examines how Ovid generates a parallel between the form and content of the text in order to depict a world where abstract scientific principles can become personified deities. This work will seek to reevaluate the impact of Greek Philosophy on Roman poetry through extending the series of intertexts which we may observe Ovid alluding to. Through following and analysing these sets of allusions this work will seek to gain an insight into Ovid's depiction of the metatextual universe.

In Tristia 4.7, Ovid describes a series of mythological hybrid creatures. This paper will argue that this catalogue of hybrids alludes to scientific accounts of the primitive creatures that existed in the early stages in the evolution of living beings, as well as literary depictions of monstrous creatures. In particular it will argue that Ovid alludes to his own Metamorphoses, Vergil's catalogue of insubstantial monsters at Aen. 6.285-9, Lucretius account of primitive creatures at DRN 5.890-4, and most significantly Empedocles (fr. 60 DK). It will demonstrate that Ovid 'remythologises' this passage from Empedocles through the use of multiple allusions to both scientific and mythological discourse, in such a way as to question a series of distinctions, such as that between science and mythology. It will also discuss whether Ovid's catalogue of hybrids could aid a reinterpretation of the compound creatures described by Empedocles.

This paper will analyse Ovid’s representation of liquefaction in the Metamorphoses. It will show how tears and weeping are often used as a marker for the permeability of the body and frequently prefigure corporeal dissolution. It will demonstrate that in Ovid’s accounts of Byblis, Leucothoe and Polyxena, in particular, weeping and dissolution represent a fundamental loss or outpouring of liquid essence. By comparing these passages from the Metamorphoses with illustrations of the permeable structure of the body in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, and particularly Lucretius’ comparison of the body to a leaky vessel, it will argue that Ovid uses tears and liquefaction to problematize mind-body dualism. Tears display the body’s permeability and transfer the interior essence of an individual to the body’s surface. Liquefaction represents a complete loss of distinction between the inner and outer and so results in a merger or commingling of mind and body. Both weeping and corporeal dissolution also allow for the mixing and confounding of one body with another and so question how we define the borders of identity. This paper will also consider whether we can apply Ovid’s conception of the body’s permeability to the text, as Ovid uses the mode of allusion to likewise undermine the distinction between texts. It will draw on a number of examples from the Tristia to show how tears not only prefigure corporeal breakdown but stain and injure the work of the poet itself.

In the Speech of Pythagoras from Metamorphoses 15, Ovid uses a metaphor of how wax can be stamped with new images to illustrate how the anima can remain substantially the same while altering in shape when undergoing transmigration. Shortly after he describes how all things are in a state of flux, and compares the flow of time to the movement of a river. In Plato’s Theaetetus, Socrates, in an extended analogy, tells us to imagine that the ψυχή contains a block of wax, upon which are imprinted our memories, while the dialogue also contain a lengthy criticism of the Heraclitean doctrine of flux. This article will argue that Ovid adapts the wax-metaphor from the Theaetetus and that the dialogue also provides the context for Ovid’s allusion to the Heraclitean principle that πάντα ῥεῖ. It will analyse how the wax and river metaphors were transformed in the epistemological theories of the Stoics and the Epicureans in order to demonstrate how Ovid reformulates this series of philosophical discussions for poetic purposes. The final part of this article will discuss how the wax and river metaphors can be read in term of the wider intertextual agenda of the Speech of Pythagoras.

Numerous attempts have been made to mitigate the large philosophical price Aristotle pays for his commitment to spontaneous generation. I review the evidence for spontaneous generation with an intense analysis of GA 3.11, and conclude that spontaneous generation is a two-phase process requiring a) ambient, non-vital heat, and b) enclosed vital heat. I describe in detail how Aristotle conceives spontaneous generation in contrast to sexual animal and plant hermaphroditic generation. I show how this comparison contributes to the dualizing nature of spontaneous generation within the scala naturae. Finally, I argue that the natural extension of this scala leads us to the Meteorologica, whose own scala ajoins it. I conclude that the primary philosophical purpose of spontaneous generation was to unify the living and non-living world.