Ovid's Metamorphose Analysis

While Bearsley describes the artist as an ephemeral agent in material, supplanting pastoral, aesthetic experience; within the Ovidian oeuvre, particularly the ‘Metamorphoses,’ a diuersae artis (diversity of arts) is often portrayed as a vehicle by which to transcend mortal suffering – occurring in spite of artistry - on the “lore legar populi” (“lips of the people”) [Met. 15.877]. Predominantly, however, in the fabulae of Marsyas [Met. 6.382], Daphne [Met. 1.452], Pygmalion [Met. 10.243], Morpheus [Met. 11.633], Byblis [Met. 9.454] and Philomela [Met. 6.451] we encounter a number of contradictory representations of sublunary artistry, equally facilitating and purging the dolour of the human condition, with both aspects frequently highlighted
1.515] as a device for evoking the suffering of both constructs, Apollo the discarded artist and Daphne (the vehicle by which Ovid effectively aestheticizes our locus amoenus , one ‘supplanting pastoral experience’ with that aetiological “laure”) exhibiting the artistry of the desired figura . Though Fieldherr indicates that the challenge of comprehending metamorphosis “compels the reader to make a choice between different interpretations”; perhaps, inter alia, artistry acts as a powerful mechanism for representing the suffering of transformation, exploding the poem into literary, theological and political discursive levels – as suggested by the juxtaposition between the verb “velox” (swift) and “pigris” (sluggish), the moment of artistic mutation [Met. 1.551]. Nonetheless, the expulsive synthesis between the consonant “v” and plosive “p” emphasises the discordance of the human condition both before and after representations of artistry - that is, suffering in spite of skill. This could be said to represent the duality of the Ovidian oeuvre, reflected in the contrasting personae of lover and exile distinguishing the poet’s work before and subsequent to 8 BCE
Undoubtedly, this revisionist assertion is emphasised within Byblis’ constructed epistle, the interrogative “quantum est, quod desit” (“what’s missing is easily reached?”) functioning with the seme “desit” as a device for abstracting sexual expression, a vehicle for artistic bliss in spite of suffering. Whilst Burrow suggests that this manifestation allows us to “ponder the effects of art”; potentially, the cretic “sumtas ponit positasque” works with the sibilant “s” to denote the inherent entrapment, leading to suffering, within the artistic form. Nonetheless, like Ovid, Coknaye’s “The Tragedy of Ovid” employs the