The books put out by Bolchazy-Carducci are wonderful for students and teachers to use as they prepare for the AP tests. The book includes commentary and a glossary of terms that the author uses in the poems. A short biography is at the beginning.

Let me just say that if you can read Latin, this is the essential way to read the fantastic works of Ovid. These selections from the Ars Amatoria and the Remedia Amoris are very fun to translate, as well as applicable to our modern society. The great thing about this book, though, is that there are vocabulary definitions ON THE SAME PAGE as the text itself, thereby eliminating the boredom of shuffling through a Latin dictionary, not to mention his notes on difficult to translate sections. There is also a pull out small dictionary at the back of the book, which contains every word that appears more than 10 times in the work. Therefore, this is the only book you'll need to translate, as opposed to a Latin dictionary. This takes the fun out and leaves only the pleasures of reading Latin literature.

My Latin teacher wrote this book (Michael C. Rossi)! It's a good supplement to the Latin Via Ovid textbook. It also stands good by itself. Buy this book if you want more practice with Latin grammar or your Latin needs brushing up.

Of maximum comfort to anyone forced to live away from home; exquisite rendition of homesickness, will give solace to fellow exiles. Essential read for those who live with foreigners.

Erotic, comical, dramatic, shocking, and mystical, this is a fascinating collection of some of Ovid's greatest stories. Adapted for the stage, these ancient stories embody some of the most pressing issues in modern society, while paying homage to their deep roots in classical antiquity. A must-read for the student of classical studies and mythology, and anyone with an imagination or a yen for the fanciful. The characters of Juno, Jupiter, Bacchus and others are brought to life and highlighed with amazing color and depth. This is your chance to acquaint - or refamiliarize yourself - with the ancient world. You will not be disappointed!

Absolutely excellent, pick one each night before bed and enjoy a pleasantly disturbing series of reverie to prod your psyche. However, I find it really hard to believe that this book ships "Usually within 24 hours", when it's out of print. Also, why are their surcharges on Don Webb books, when most of the titles in this catalog are discounted?

This fascinating novel may seem at first to be a well-written romance or frothy bit of historical fiction. Alison's style from the outset is sensuously heavy, filled with lush impressions from an exotic area "on the farthest coast of the Black Sea, in the corner of the maps where sea monsters coiled...." The Roman poet Ovid is in self-exile here, having offended the moralistic Emperor Augustus with his erotic book, The Art of Love, and we come to empathize with him through his interior monologues. The dense imagery so familiar in Ovid's poetry shines here, not only in his description of Pontus, but also of the beguiling Xenia, a priestess and practitioner of magic, who, if she resembles the cover photo in any way, is a most bewitching creature of seemingly supernatural power. She is much like the mythical witch Medea, the area's most renowned character and "heroine" of Euripedes' terrifying tragedy of the same name.

When Xenia returns to Rome with Ovid, however, the exoticism and romanticism become less an end in themselves and more a part of the psychological atmosphere, and the author begins actively to solicit the reader's curiosity. Ovid, with Augustus's granddaughter Julia as his patroness and Xenia as his inspiration, begins work on his play Medea, from which only two lines have survived to the present day. Here the novel is less straightforward and less overtly romantic, acquiring a sense of great mystery, consistent with the mystery both of Ovid's tragic play and of the Medea legend itself.

Love, jealousy, revenge, rage, the fear of rejection, and the desire for immortality, so vividly exemplified in the tragedy of the legendary Medea, find their parallels in life here, as Xenia, Ovid, and Julia play out the triangle of misunderstandings which leads to the inevitable conclusion--Ovid's banishment. Omitting all the usual authorial signals that clue the reader about what s/he is supposed to think and feel, Alison reveals instead what Xenia, Ovid, and Julia, are thinking and feeling, leaving it up to the reader to figure out what has happened to these characters that makes them feel and act the way they do. The drama of this remarkable novel comes fully to life, and the reader begins to feel that s/he is participating in the inexorable falling action of a real, classical tragedy. This startlingly original and intense novel is a pleasure to read slowly--it ultimately enthralls because even its conclusion is elusive.

Note: Lovers of this novel may also be intrigued with David Malouf's equally unusual novel, An Imaginary Life, which begins where this novel ends, with Ovid's banishment.

I loved David Malouf's, "An Imaginary Life" so I was sure I would love "The Love Artist" as well. I was not wrong; I do. While "An Imaginary Life" tells the story of the Roman poet Ovid's life after his exile, "The Love Artist" tells us about what led up to that exile. These details are all imagined, of course, but this book is so well-written and so enjoyable, one can't help but wish it were all true.

"The Love Artist" is told in a frame. It opens with Ovid's arrest and exile, then flashes back to tell the story of the events leading up to that arrest and exile, until the Epilogue, set, once again, at the time of his arrest.

At the time of his arrest, Ovid is Rome's most fashionable and famous poet and he has just finished Metamorphoses. Knowing he'd better leave Rome for awhile, he vacations on the east coast of the Black Sea, close to the home of Medea. While on holiday, he meets a beautiful young herbalist, Xenia, a woman with mysterious powers who will change the course of his life when she makes him her lover and he makes her his muse. Xenia and Ovid have the same wish in life, "To be known. To be remembered. To live forever."

Ovid and Xenia return to Rome where it seems as though everyone except Augustus is quite pleased with Metamprphoses. Even Augustus's hated granddaughter, Julia, is entranced by it. Ovid, under the patronage of Julia, begins a new work, the now lost play, Medea.

The above sets up many questions that have to be answered in the pages of this book. What happens when Xenia, now pregnant, discovers that the beautiful Julia is Ovid's new patron? Will Xenia commit the same heinous crime as did Medea? Will Ovid and Xenia find eternal life? What will be Xenia's ultimate fate and the fate of her children? You have to read the book to find out the answers.

What we do know about Ovid is scant. We know that he was "probably" exiled because of Augustus's displeasure with The Art of Love. But what happened to his play, Medea? Only two lines remain. And why was Julia, Augustus's granddaughter exiled at the same time as was Ovid?

While the characters in "The Love Artist" are fascinating to read about they aren't people anyone would care to know in real life. They are all plotting, secretive, and very selfish and self-centered in their bid for power and immortality. And yes, even bloodthirsty. None of the characters knows what the others are up to and, most of the time, neither do we. This heightens the suspense of "The Love Artist" and its eventual horror is made all the more terrible by virtue of being told in language that is lyrical in its beauty. Although Augustus seems to be the most fair and reasonable character in the book, we can't help but be fascinated with Ovid and the entrancing (but evil) Xenia.

The fact that Alison could fashion a novel as rich and lush as "The Love Artist" from these tiny fragments of
history is not small feat. This is a lyrical, fascinating and dense novel revolving around the themes of corrupt love, a creativity that has destruction at its core and an unquenchable desire for immortality, a desire that will render a person capable of anything.

Anyone who is interested in ancient Rome or in the poetry of Ovid should love "The Love Artist." It is engrossing and holds one's interest from the first page to the last. I only wish it would have been longer. I just wanted this book to go on and on.

How many of us remember our days at school -- high school or college -- having the classics rammed down our throats, when a gentler method might have instilled in more of us an appeciation and love for the masterful works of Greece and Rome in their heyday? Ovid, of course (at least when I was in school, lo these many years ago) was glossed over by my teachers -- his works were far too seeded in the 'forbidden' emotions of physical love for the school boards of the day.

Jane Alison's incredible novel THE LOVE-ARTIST brings Ovid, his contemporaries and their society vividly to life for the reader -- the story she tells is no cold biography, but a living, breathing imagined life. Her characters -- Ovid, and especially Xenia -- are enthralling, exotic, erotic and (most importantly) BELIEVABLE. Their thoughts and emotions and motives, as layed out for us in this enthralling tale, make for as compelling a read as I've come across in recent years.

The story begins with Ovid being exiled from Rome by the emperor Augustus -- he is being transported through the Roman night seated on a wagon, flanked by two soldiers saddled with the boring (to them) duty of ridding Augustus of one more irritation. As the great poet begins to recall the events that led to his societal downfall, the rest of the story is told in a lengthy flashback.

On holiday on the Black Sea, far from Rome, as his masterpiece THE METAMORPHOSES is about to be published, Ovid is seeking both relaxation from the tensions of life in Rome as well as inspiration. He knows that in order to regain favour in the eyes of the emperor, his next work must be not only astounding in its scope, but acceptable to the powers-that-be. Almost as soon as he sets foot on land after his long sea journey, he is astonished to see a beautiful, exotic, wild young woman shoot up out of the sea as if she had been launched by a catapult.

She is Xenia -- gatherer of herbs, caster of spells, exorcisor of demons, reader of dreams and futures among the people in the remote region where she lives. She captures Ovid's imagination -- and his heart -- almost immediately. He sees in her all of the wild creatures from his METAMORPHOSES brought to life in a human being -- and he sees in her a muse, his inspiration for his next work. He becomes obsessed with her -- he must have her, he must bring her back with him to Rome.

Xenia is fully aware of Ovid's work -- and she soon comes to realize that the lanky Roman who is watching her from his hidden (he thinks) spot in the woods is the great poet she has so long admired. She is not completely wild -- she can read Latin, and has devoured Ovid's books. She is equally obsessed with him -- she sees in him a great opportunity for immortality, to be famous. They set their sights on each other almost simultaneously -- and the machinations they first have in mind give way in both of them to love.

The tale that follows -- with Ovid returning to Rome with Xenia -- is part love story, part mystery, a small epic of betrayal and magic and political power. Alison's writing is achingly lyrical -- it is perfectly suited to her subject, matching her imaginings of Ovid's life with the mood left us from the genius of his own writings. The story is enthralling and hard to put down -- and one of the finest novels I've read in some time. The experience was so rich that I didn't want it to end -- even as it whirled to its inevitable conclusion (which, thankfully, Alison's talents imbued with not a few surprises).

This novel is a real treat.

I'm sorry I must disagree with all other reviewers on this edition. First of all let me quickly say I'm not really rating Ovid, but this specific translation. Don't be fooled by the book cover, which is a rather handsome one. This edition is missing something! The translation seems all right, at times it rhymes, but I'm no judge of that for I've never read Ovid in it's original Latin text (I can't read Latin!). Anyway, the edition lacks any annotation. Now some people may find that to be of no consequence but I think it quite important. This is one of the reasons I value Fagles' Iliad and Odyssey. They are both well annotated and both have interesting introductory essays.

Let me point out why annotation is important. As I was reading Mandelbaum's edition (quite enjoying it), I reached the point where Apollo falls in love with Daphne. I got somewhat confused because then it seemed another character named Phoebus comes in. So it seems we have three characters. And I suddenly realized that in fact Phoebus and Apollo are the same god, Phoebus is just an epithet for Apollo. I only found this out by looking up the notes in the Fagles edition (which by the way also has a pronunciation guide). And so without any annotation, a reader (such as me) who has recently started to read the ancient classics would be clueless, for Ovid assumes that his audience knows what he is writing about-since after all these are Gods know by the Romans. And this where a good editor would bridge the gap (between the modern reader and the ancient writer).

Many say that it is the reader's job to look up things he does not understand. But in a book like this one, where hundreds of gods are floating about, this task would be monumental. Take for example the case of Phoebus and Apollo. Some readers may never have noticed that in fact Phoebus and Apollo have to be the same god. Mandelbaum and all the other learned reviewers may already have knowledge of the Roman mythology but not me. I wish to be slowly eased into Ovid's world but Mandelbaum drowns me. He has little care for readers like me.

The Metamorphoses is an excellent work and Mandelbaum does a great job of translating. The book is full of the ancient greek myths of hero's, gods, and regular individuals. While not as readable as Homer or Virgil, Ovid gives a great account of many of the ancient myths. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Greek Mythology.

Did you ever wonder where Keats garnered the inspiration for Endymion? Or why Shakespeare's plays always make reference to the Greek and Roman gods instead of the Judeo-Christian ones? In part, this book is at the foundation.

This is THE book to get the knowledge of the myths that our modern and not so modern conceptions of Roman and Greek gods and myths come from. And it has served as inspiration for poets, writers, shepherds and talentless hacks for millenia.

Mandelbaum's translation is sufficient in that it is not an original work. A translator must before anything get the point across. Embellishments and other creative input into a translation add only defects. Mandelbaum's tranlsation suffices and is very readable and very understandable.

Edith Wharton's "Mythology" will help one get through it if the verse is incomprehensible to the reader and works well as a supplement to this book. A highly enjoyable and almost mandatory read.

Ovid's tales are fantastic, but few readers make it through all of his tales. Hughes picks only the most famous and makes memorable translations of them. I use this book in our high school English curriculum for mythology -- it's just enough that students learn the essential Greek myths, but not too much that it becomes overwhelming. Hughes' translations are emminently readable. Sure, he could have included more, but those he does include are fanstastic and very vivid.

Anyone who may have seen the brilliant Anthony Hopkins' movie, TITUS, a movie based on Shakespeare's most Ovidian play, 'Titus Andronicus,' and one which actually features Ovid's book, and who may now have a yen to read or re-read Ovid, could do worse than take a look at Ted Hughes' reworkings, in modern idiom, of Ovid's fascinating tales.

Hughes, in his brief but quite informative Preface, finds in both Shakespeare and Ovid a "common taste for tortured subjectivity and catastrophic extremes of passion." He continues : "Above all, Ovid was interested in passion. Or rather, in what a passion feels like to the one possessed of it. Not just ordinary passion either, but passion 'in extremis'" (pages viii-ix).

As a passionate man himself, one can understand the appeal that Ovid has for Hughes, and may suspect that he, if anyone, was the man to give us a modernized Ovid. Personally I found myself enthralled by Ted Hughes' versions of these tales. So what, if in furtherance of his poetic aims, he has reworked the tales to some extent? Hughes is an exceptionally talented poet, and I'll leave it to those who are his equals in poetic talent to argue with his procedures. I doubt there can be many.

Hughes' incredible skill as a poet is everywhere in evidence on these pages. His handling of image and sound and rhythm and line length, his lucid diction, and his stunning ability to find precisely the right word - as in such lines as "no earth / spun in empty air on her own magnet" (pages 3-4), or "Everwhere he taught / the tree its leaf" (page 5), or "Echo collapsed in sobs, / As her voice lurched among the mountains" (page 77), or "And there she was - the Arcadian beauty, Callisto. / He stared. Lust bristled up his thighs / And poured into the roots of his teeth" (page 46) - such skill leaves me in awe. Let purists rage, but if this isn't exactly what Ovid said, then perhaps it's what he should have said, or would have said if he too had been a vigorous Northerner like Hughes.

There are free translations of Ovid such as that of Ted Hughes. There are also more literal translations such as that of Rolfe Humphries. Both have their uses and it isn't the case that one is good and the other is bad. Hughes is good and Humphries is not bad either.

I suppose what it comes down to is whether you prefer major poet Ovid as filtered through the sensibility of another major poet, or Ovid as filtered through the mind of a Latin scholar (persons who are not usually noted for their poetic abilities, though Housman was an exception). But if it's 'poetry' you are interested in, you won't be going far wrong in plumping for Hughes. It's one of those golden books you'll want to return to often.

When I was introduced to these stories in grade school I was bored senseless and avoided them well into adulthood. This collection brings the stories and characters to life in such a way that now I want to search out other translations. The portrayals of Echo and Hunger still haunt me and I read their respective tales often. This may not be a "true" translation that academics want, but it's a wonderful read in an area this isn't read much of any more.

This translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses by A.D. Melville has some good points as well as some bad points. The stories are well told. They are put into English that is easy to understand; yet Melville maintains much of the original prose. The biggest downfall would be the arrangement of the stories is slightly random and hard to follow when one attempts to read straight through the work. However, each story in itself is well written and portrays the idea of its appropriate myth. The notes at the back of the text help the reader to understand ideas that might not be obvious to a reader in this 20th century, where many of us have little background in mythology. There is also a glossary that the reader may use to find specific stories about certain characters. In my mythology class, I found this method especially useful in projects in which require finding many stories about a certain god, for instance. Perhaps the most important aspect of Ovid's renditions of the myths is that they contain many details about surroundings or the visual contexts of the myths, which help a reader to relate more easily. This may not be found in other texts dealing with the same myths. Many texts focus more on the story itself and the events occurring. If one is a visual learner, perhaps this book would be most helpful in understanding and interpreting many of the important myths. All in all, this is a pretty good book, yet there may be one that better serves to tie the myths together in an easy to follow way.

Ovid's Metamorphoses is a rich and involved text dealing with classical mythology. Any student of poetry, past or present, can attest to the wonderful skill and excellent usage of diction that can be found in this book. If you like classical mythology this book shouldn't be absent from your library. The book attempts to deal with the coveted god's of ancient Roman mythology, their stories, and some other classical characters. As a student of Latin myself, I have studied this work many times. Yet, each time I pick up the book to read it, regardless of how many times I've read a passage before, I find that my senses are never dulled to it. The work is purely amazing, it should be given special honor just for its poetic style and sophistication. However, it is so beautifully done that anyone reading it for pleasure will find it enjoyable and enriching. Here are the opening lines as they appear in Rolfe Humphries' translation: My intention is to tell of bodies changed To different forms; the gods, who made the changes, Will help me-or I hope so-with a poem That runs from the world's beginning to our own days.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a Latin student, likes poetry, or just likes to read for pleasure.

Ovid gives wonderful accounts of the most famous mythological characters and their exploits.It is a poem, and should be #3 on the list of important authors of Classics poems: 1)Homer 2)Vergil. Ovid is however, very easy to read and should be used as a source--not merely for knowledge of stories--for enjoyment. Rudolfe Humphries' translation seems to be the most readable.