Abstract
Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) consists of three books. The first teaches the young male lover the where and the how of winning over a desired mistress. The second explains how to keep her once he has successfully charmed her. Finally, the third combines the advice of Books I and II and contextualises it for a female audience. In this newly established genre of erotodidactic poetry, Ovid retells nine Greco-Roman myths at length: the rape of the Sabine women, Pasiphae and the bull, Ariadne and Bacchus, and Deidamia and Achilles in Book I; Daedalus and Icarus, Ulysses and Calypso, Helen and Menelaus, and Venus and Mars in Book II; and Procris and Cephalus in Book III.
The aim of this study is to establish how Ovid uses these myths to critique, maintain or restructure male-female amorous relationships within Roman patriarchal society. To date, such a study has not been done systematically. The method used to explore this problem was to establish the extratextual context of the Ars Amatoria (biography of Ovid; the Leges Iuliae about marriage, the literary background and intended audience). Each mythical digression was then analysed by reconstructing the traditional version(s), and comparing them with Ovid’s retelling (intertextual and intratextual analyses). In this way an account was given of Ovid’s creativity and perspective on how men and women should love each other.
The results of the research may be summarised as follows. Ovid’s disenchantment with the traditional system of arranged marriages probably stems from his own experience. His first marriage was arranged and brought two people together totally unsuitable for one another. His second wife left him for reasons unknown, while his third wife fulfilled her duties quite well. Ovid did not pursue a military career, but rather promoted the idea of being a soldier of love. The Leges Iuliae were promoted by the Emperor Augustus to maintain the social fabric of the ruling classes in the Roman Empire. Adultery was a punishable offence and the laws did not promote fulfilling liaisons between males and females attracted to one another. Adultery therefore continued unabated and Ovid pretended to aim his advice at...
D.Litt. et Phil. (Latin)