Ovid's use of Lucretius in Metamorphoses 1.67–8

Classical Quarterly 45 (01):200- (1995)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Here Ovid treats the demiurge's disposition of weightless aether over the other elements. This section of the cosmogony follows one that is devoted to the sphere of aer where the creator settles the turbulent winds and other threatening meteorological phenomena. Recently Denis Feeney has suggested that Ovid's demiurge ‘does not act in a very epic manner’ by placing weightless aether on top of the winds. He argues: ‘The oddness of the control is caught in a moment of comparison with Vergil's universe: Vergil's Jupiter controls the winds by putting on top of them a mass of mountains, while Ovid's mundi fabricator places above them the aether, explicitly “liquid and lacking weight, containing nothing of earthly sediment” ’. Feeney's observation has much to recommend it. To begin with, Ovid's excursus on the cardinal winds evokes Vergil's set piece on the cave of Aeolus in Aeneid l. And the demiurge's subsequent placement of aether seems to echo the action of the Vergilian Jupiter. However, Feeney's conclusion that the demiurge's action is ‘redolent of anti-epic allegiances’ needs some adjustment.4 For his reading neglects an important verbal and structural allusion to the cosmogony of Lucretius . Accordingly, the conclusion to be drawn from lines 67–8 may be, not that Ovid momentarily reveals his Callimachean colours in an epic context, but that he plays Lucretius off against Vergil and so establishes his own position in the epic tradition of cosmological poetry

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Ovid’s audiences. [REVIEW]Niklas Holzberg - 2000 - The Classical Review 50 (02):443-.
Ovid, Metamorphoses.E. J. Kenney - 1975 - The Classical Review 25 (01):35-.
Ovid, Metamorphoses vi–x.E. J. Kenney - 1975 - The Classical Review 25 (01):33-.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.2.David Kovacs - 1987 - Classical Quarterly 37 (02):458-.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-12-09

Downloads
10 (#1,025,836)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Gigantomachy and Natural Philosophy.D. C. Innes - 1979 - Classical Quarterly 29 (01):165-.
Gigantomachy and Natural Philosophy.D. C. Innes - 1979 - Classical Quarterly 29 (1):165-171.
Cupid, Apollo, and Daphne.W. S. M. Nicoll - 1980 - Classical Quarterly 30 (1):174-182.

Add more references