Ovid's Briseis

W HILE STILL YOUNG, OVID perceived, with an insight into the viability and flexibility of the genres of poetry that remained characteristic of him throughout his life, that Elegy, as it had been taken over with such brilliance by the Latin poets of the first century B.C., had reached the end of its road or-at the least-that he was not the person to continue its journey down traditional and well-worn paths. And, of course, he was right. But in those last years Ovid led Elegy down roads nullius ante trita solo and, if neither Ovid nor his readers could unabashedly claim that at each turn experiment met with success, nevertheless the efforts involved were often distinctly original, a quality Ovid cultivated and considered a virtue in itself, often interesting, and, on those occasions when innovation, insight, and sensitivity felicitously conjoined, strikingly brilliant and poetry of the first rank

Art · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

• Ancient and modern voices of Briseis

  Open Access•Rachel H Lesser•Classical Receptions Journal•2025

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