Anyway, after hearing all about the grandeur and timeless wisdom of Roman poetry, I went into this expecting greater meanings of life and such like. Translating it showed me differently. It turns out Ovid is nothing short of hipster. Yes, I said it. Somebody had to. Really, Latin is hard enough without taking it to an artistic and obscure extreme. One word will be at the end of one line, and the word describing it will be really far away from it. Apparently it builds suspense. Oh yeah, and he employs chiasma to "represent the barrier between the two lovers."
I can imagine Ovid chilling around the Forum. No, not the Forum, because that's too mainstream. There was probably some obscure little Roman equivalent of a coffee shop that is only in ruins now. No, it'd be completely gone, because only famous, mainstream things survived and are preserved through the centuries. Ovid probably chilled in there, sipping ancient Fair Trade wine and eating vegan cat brains or something. That's probably why a lot of stories don't involve Romans. Writing about Greeks and Babylonians would be so much more deck. I wonder how he managed to pull off skinny jeans and scarves with his toga...
That's the cruel irony of it. Ovid is now considered a prime example of Classical Literature. He's mainstream. People read his work through the Middle Ages and onward, and hundreds of Latin students like me read him every year. Oh, cruel fate that torments Roman poetry. Destroying the lives of Pyramus and Thisbe just wasn't enough, you had to go and make Ovid the pinnacle of mainstream Classical culture, too.
I can imagine Ovid chilling around the Forum. No, not the Forum, because that's too mainstream. There was probably some obscure little Roman equivalent of a coffee shop that is only in ruins now. No, it'd be completely gone, because only famous, mainstream things survived and are preserved through the centuries. Ovid probably chilled in there, sipping ancient Fair Trade wine and eating vegan cat brains or something. That's probably why a lot of stories don't involve Romans. Writing about Greeks and Babylonians would be so much more deck. I wonder how he managed to pull off skinny jeans and scarves with his toga...
That's the cruel irony of it. Ovid is now considered a prime example of Classical Literature. He's mainstream. People read his work through the Middle Ages and onward, and hundreds of Latin students like me read him every year. Oh, cruel fate that torments Roman poetry. Destroying the lives of Pyramus and Thisbe just wasn't enough, you had to go and make Ovid the pinnacle of mainstream Classical culture, too.
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