Ovid: Ars Amatoria, Book III

A full-scale commentary emphasising the poem's didactic elements and its treatment of women.

Book III of Ovid's Ars Amatoria teaches women how to catch and keep men and is here presented in the first full modern edition. Considerable attention is paid in the introduction and commentary to recent developments in interpreting didactic poetry and the treatment of women by the Latin elegiac poets.This is a full-scale commentary devoted to the third book of Ovid's Ars Amatoria. It includes an Introduction, a revision of E. J. Kenney's Oxford text of the book, and detailed line-by-line and section-by-section commentary on the language and ideas of the text. Combining traditional philological scholarship with some of the concerns of more recent critics, both Introduction and commentary place particular emphasis on: the language of the text; the relationship of the book to the didactic, 'erotodidactic' and elegiac traditions; Ovid's usurpation of the lena's traditional role of erotic instructor of women; the poet's handling of the controversial subjects of cosmetics and personal adornment; and the literary and political significances of Ovid's unexpected emphasis in the text of Ars III on restraint and 'moderation'. The book will be of interest to all postgraduates and scholars working on Augustan poetry.