Comparing Ovid's Metamorphoses And The Amores

Plato’s critique of Ovid is in the lack of reason and attention to the soul in his depiction of Eros. In Ovid’s writings, The Metamorphoses and The Amores, he focuses more on the body and the madness of love and Plato in The Symposium, focuses on the soul and reason in love. Plato’s overall critique is that of the popular love that Ovid depicts in his writings.

The first critique that Plato makes of the love that Ovid describes is that it focuses almost exclusively on the love of the body rather than the love of the soul as is described in Plato. In the Symposium, Socrates has a conversation with Diotima about what love is, she talks about how “a lover who goes about his matter correctly must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful

In this work there are constant references to a woman’s body, especially in section four of The Amores Book I, he talks about the dinner party and how he wants to be physically close to her the entire time but her husband is there so he cannot (Ovid, 89-91). Clearly, it is not enough to be in a room with his love and to be able to exchange intellectual conversation with her, he always wants to be touching her. There is also a section on a prostitute and the issue he has with her is that, “you keep nagging for presents” (Ovid, 102). Prostitution is clearly a primarily a physical form of love so it makes sense that it is something that Ovid would mention in his work. Prostitution rarely would extend to anything beyond a love of the body into the love of the soul, this is showing Plato’s critique of this popular love very well. Ovid is talking about an exchange of physical goods with this woman instead of focusing on the emotional love behind the

To resist might just bank up the furnace- all right, I give in” (Ovid, 87). This shows that love is something so powerful that there is no point in trying to fight it. As shown in previous examples, this strong powerful love could also make you do things that you would not normally do if you were not “under the influence” of love. In this line of reasoning, it would make more sense to give in to this love than try and fight it and have the outcome be possibly worse. Ovid also says things such as, “I’m on fire now, love owns the freedom of my heart (Ovid, 86). Cleary in this case, Ovid believes that once Cupid lets loose his arrow that he then takes control of your heart and all actions that you then take. There is also more powerful imagery of love when he mentions fire. It is apparent that whatever love he is feeling is very powerful and all consuming.

Furthering this point of an all-consuming love, Ovid also describes the anguish of being in love, “simpler, for me, to tear my body and soul apart” (Ovid, 93). It is apparent that the madness that love has caused him is too much to bear even if he has surrendered to love. Understandably, if you found yourself in this position you would do anything to cease the pain and agony even if it meant doing something