Metamorphoses (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature) Book

Ovid's Metamorphoses, completed around AD8, shows the presence and prevalence of change in the world. Beginning with chaos and creation, Ovid embraces a vast array of mythological tales within his theme of transformation. Phaeton, Narcissus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Daedalus and Icarus are only a few of the most famous. Passing through these to the serio-comic retellings of the Trojan War, the travels of Aeneas, and the events of Roman history down to Ovid's own times, his readers find infinite variety in a work that is, by turns, funny, pathetic and violent - always unpredictable and always engrossing. John Dryden's translations are featured in this collaborative Metamorphoses, first issued in 1717, to which eighteen translators contributed under the editorship of Sir Samuel Garth. Composed in a poetic idiom well suited to the satiric and mock-heroic aspects of this work, this is the only translation that can match Ovid's wit and stylistic sophistication.