On Ovid's Metamorphoses

Ovid’s Metamorphoses has entranced audiences for two thousand years, from Rome under Augustus to humanities classrooms today. Borrowing liberally from Greek and Roman mythology, the poem tells hundreds of stories that share one essential theme: each tale depicts a transformation from one physical form into another. Drawing on many years of teaching the Metamorphoses , Gareth Williams offers a brisk and lively reading of the poem that emphasizes why it speaks in compelling ways to a twenty-first-