Ovid's Metamorphoses Literary Analysis

Ovid’s Metamorphoses was originally published in 8 AD, after Ovid was influenced by his readings of Alexandrian poetry. This collection of stories cannot be labeled only one genre, as Ovid’s work is narrative poetry, while also being an epic, an elegy, a tragedy, and a pastoral. Book III of Metamorphoses begins immediately after Jupiter abducted Europa while Mercury turned Jove into a bull. In this particular book, it tells the story of Cadmus’ search for his sister and the struggles that he endures, Actaeon returns and is handed down a punishment. Throughout Book III there is a sense that it is attempting to tell a love story, as there are a lot of themes in this section about family, love, sexual encounters and their partners. Soon after

For example, in Book III we are made aware of Bacchus’ divine actions through Ovid reflecting on ideas and qualities in the form of other characters that are associated with Bacchus. This can be seen in the story of Narcissus and Echo, as Ovid goes into detail, stating many parallels between Narcissus and Bacchus, such as the fact that neither of them had developed physically into their mature, fully-grown selves yet. Ovid doesn’t directly tell of Bacchus’ actions, but rather talks about Bacchus in parallel with Narcissus, which makes the audience aware of his divide actions without blatantly stating it. He also describes them as not having solely male features nor solely females features, which meant that he was desired by males and females. This section of Book III, where transsexuality is explored within the myths can be seen from the account of Teiresias. Since Teiresias has been sexually active with members of both the male and female gender, as he was turned into a woman for seven years as a punishment due to him striking two serpents that were mating in the woods. During an argument between Jupiter and Juno about which gender enjoys sex the most, Tiresias jumps in and agrees with Jupiter that women do, which led to Juno making Tiresias blind. However as can be seen throughout this story, good deeds are repaid in another form, this time it was through Jupiter given Tiresias supernatural foresight, which allowed him to predict that Narcissus would live a long life as long as he didn’t fall in love with himself, which he later did. This too however is not directly expressed; however, we can see it through the perspective of a third-party which is a common theme throughout