The Student's Ovid

Book excerpt: Ideally suited to intermediate to advanced college-level students, The Student’s Ovid offers twenty-one selections from the Metamorphoses, with notes to aid translation and interpretation. The introduction includes an essay on Ovid’s life and works, an outline of the structure of the Metamorphoses, and tips on Latin poetic forms and usage. Accompanying each Latin passage is an introduction that provides background on the myths and their literary history, both in Ovid and in other classical authors. The detailed notes on each selection are designed to help students read and understand the Latin for themselves. Other special features of this book include: · a glossary of mythological characters · lists of stories grouped by theme to help teachers design courses to suit their students’ interests · discussions of the basic concepts of classical meter, Latin pronunciation, and accentuation · reference charts on the declension of Greek nouns to aid the reading of proper names · a select bibliography of translations and secondary studies