Mythical and Legendary Narrative in Ovid's Fasti

Book excerpt: This book analyses the mythical and legendary narratives in Ovid's Fasti as narrative and concentrates on the neglected literary aspects of these stories. It combines traditional tools of literary criticism with more modern techniques (taken especially from narratology and intertextuality). From a narratological viewpoint it covers important features such as aperture, closure, characterization, internal narrators, description, space, time and cinematic technique. On the intertextual level it examines the narratives' complex relationship with Virgil, Livy and Ovid's own earlier works. Recent criticism on the Fasti has addressed various elements (religious, historical, political, astronomical etc.), but detailed narrative study has been wanting. This book fills that gap, to provide a more informed and balanced appreciation of this multifaceted poem aimed at classicists and literary critics in general (for whom all the Latin is translated).