LIT 231
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Metamorphoses, Books X, XIII-XIV

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. In Book X of the Metamorphoses, Ovid focuses on the legendary harpist and poet Orpheus.  In classical times, Orpheus was believed to be the greatest poet that ever lived – a model for all other poets who aspired to greatness.  How does Ovid portray this great poet?  What role does harping and poetry seem to play for Ovid?  Why does Orpheus sing?  What does he sing about?  What value or purpose does his singing seem to have?  How successful is Orpheus’s harping when it comes to himself and his listeners?  Why does Ovid portray Orpheus the way he does?  What is Ovid trying to say about song and poetry?
2. Why does Ovid focus so much time and space on the debate between Ulysses and Ajax over the armor of Achilles?  How does the debate between Ulysses and Ajax relate or respond to Virgil’s retelling of the fall of Troy in Books II and III of the Aeneid?  How does Ovid’s Ulysses compare to Virgil’s?  What does Ovid see in the character of Ulysses?  Positive qualities?  Negative qualities?  How does Ovid’s portrayal differ from Virgil’s?  How do Ovid’s other episodes from the Trojan War (Cygnus, Polyxena, Hecuba, etc.) relate or respond to Virgil?
3. How does Ovid’s story of Aeneas differ from Virgil’s?  Why does Ovid emphasize the episodes (and digressions) that he does (Galatea and Polyphemus, Scylla and Glaucus, the Sibyl, Achaemenides and Macareus, the war between the Latins and the Trojans)?  What impressions do you get of Polyphemus, Scylla, Circe, the dead, Ulysses, and Aeneas?  How are those impressions like or unlike the impressions you get of the same characters in the Aeneid?  Why doesn’t Ovid, like Virgil, just tell the story in a more straightforward manner?  What is the focus of the story in Ovid’s version?  How does that focus differ from Virgil’s?

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