Read more background about The Metamorphoses of Ovid including the structure and significance of the poem and the influence Greece had on this work.

The Metamorphoses appears on the Common Core State Standards in Appendix B as a grade 9–10 Text Exemplar under the category: “Stories.” The unit maybe adapted for different grade and ability levels. Ovid’s Metamorphoses continued to be very popular, however, and his stories continued to inspire writers and artists from the Middle Ages to the present. For a reason unknown to history, Ovid was exiled in 8 CE by the Emperor Augustus and was forced to live away from Rome until his death in 17 CE. Frequently, those stories entail physical changes: a god changing into a swan a girl changing into a heifer a nymph becoming a tree. His major text, the one for which he is best known, was The Metamorphoses (literally, “the changes”), in which he set down tales of the Roman divinities and heroes from creation to the deification of Julius Caesar. His early works were collections of poems that were both passionate and erotic. Guiding Questionsīorn near Rome in 43 BCE, Ovid studied rhetoric to prepare for a career in politics but abandoned his studies to pursue poetry. They explore great art works that drew inspiration from Ovid and compare how the same story can be rendered in two different mediums. In the third lesson, students turn from Ovid’s legacy in literature to visual art. They then compare Ovid’s mythic passages with the poem entitled “Eurydice” by H.D., a twentieth-century poet. The second lesson has students consider the story of Orpheus, the lover who tries to rescue his beloved wife from death itself. Students consider the creative elements within two stories of creation and the destructive elements within two stories of a great flood that all but obliterated humankind.

The first lesson compares similarities between Genesis and The Metamorphoses. The lessons in this unit comprise a series of comparisons. Thanks to Ovid’s imaginative rendering of these mythological figures and events, the stories still continue to have meaning for us today. the portrayal of Achilles in Troy and the 1930s-style retelling of Odysseus’ wanderings in O Brother Where Art Thou?) Despite his popularity in his own lifetime, this Latin author was exiled from Rome in 8 CE by the Emperor Augustus. Even modern filmmakers use these myths as the foundation for their screenplays (i.e. Since the Middle Ages, writers, painters, and sculptors have been drawing on Ovid’s stories of the passions, adventures, and battles of the gods and heroes for inspiration. The Metamorphoses by Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) is considered one of the most influential books in the Western canon and an extremely important source for classical mythology.

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