Ovids Metamorphosen als politische Dichtung gelesen

Abstract

Is a reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses as political poetry a legitimate interpretative approach to this work? In order to answer this question, the relationship between ancient epic poetry and politics must first be analysed. On this basis, strong evidence can be found in the Metamorphoses that Ovid demonstrates to the reader that the Metamorphoses can be read in this way, without exhausting itself one-dimensionally in this interpretation, through the targeted integration of political themes at the beginning of the work (Lycaon, Daphne, the castle of the sun in the Phaethon story), which becomes a closed framework through the inclusion of Augustus at the end. Politics is one of the equally important themes of the Metamorphoses as a "total epic"; it is simultaneously relativised and eludes a clear definition through the targeted use of ambivalence: The Metamorphoses are both loyal and subversive, the decisive factor is not Augustus, but the poet himself, who controls the text.

Keywords

• Vergil
• Augustus
• Ovid
• Metamorphoses
• Daphne
• Phaethon