Building on Kristeva’s theorisation of intertextuality,[1] the application of intertexual theories to the interpretation of ancient texts has significantly increased in recent decades, particularly following Hinds’ 1998 study. Ovids Weltgedicht der Metamorphosen situates itself within the field of intertextuality in Classics by focusing on the dialogue of Ovid’s Metamorphoses with pre-Ovidian literature. Although the issue of intertextuality is—to an extent—addressed by nearly all modern scholars of the Metamorphoses, this is the first systematic monograph on the topic, thus filling a substantial gap. Eltje Böttcher interestingly associates intertextuality with the notion of multiplication, thereby showing how intertextuality functions as a tool to expand the limits of the world of the Metamorphoses substantially. While other scholars have mentioned the Metamorphoses’ tendency towards multiplication and expansion, this is typically associated with parody,[2] rather than as a method of constructing a fictional world, as suggested here. Moreover, intratextuality, a field which has also been attracting considerable interest recently,[3] is also pivotal for Böttcher’s argument to demonstrate how the ostensibly separate episodes co-exist and interconnect in a substantially coherent world. By applying a novel model of reading the Metamorphoses in which multiplication is conceptualised as emerging from inter- and intra-textuality, this book offers a new way to explore the Ovidian epic, which will benefit Ovidian experts. Thanks to its clear and well-detailed structure, the detailed signposting, and the translations of the passages offered, this book is also accessible to non-specialists.
The book is organised into sixteen chapters, each containing various subsections for clarity and ease of navigation. The first seven chapters focus on the book’s methodological framework and its relevance within current scholarship. Following these, eight chapters apply the author’s theoretical model to different episodes of the Metamorphoses. Chapter 16 encompasses a brief conclusion, followed by a bibliography and a comprehensive general index.
Chapter 1 presents a brief introduction to the book, outlining how the Metamorphoses creates a complex and cohesive world, significantly expanded through an extensive network of intertextual references. I found the premise of the argument particularly insightful, especially since contemporary scholarship has mainly focused on the poem’s unity from a narratological perspective.[4] The subsequent six chapters (2-7) analyse various aspects of the methods used and the book’s argument. Specifically, Chapter 2 places the current work within the context of relevant research, presenting the Metamorphoses as a sustained world. The author demonstrates a solid understanding of prior research and effectively organises relevant studies in chronological order. Chapter 3 outlines the book’s methodological framework and demonstrates how it builds on previous scholarship. In this chapter and throughout the book, the author demonstrates a thorough understanding of the evolution of relevant scholarship, providing an extensive bibliography of the episodes examined. One notable omission is the valuable series of Italian commentaries on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which frequently discuss the poem’s intertextuality.[5]
Chapters 4 and 5 explore the seemingly conflicting notions of the Metamorphoses’ internal coherence and variation respectively, explaining how these two concepts do not only coexist but also interrelate, leading up to the creation of a multifaceted and consistent world. Chapter 6 serves as a two-page long interim conclusion. Chapter 7 associates the methods of intertextuality and intermateriality with the expansion of the poem’s borders and the inclusion of a much greater world, literary and extra-literary. The last two decades have seen a growing trend towards the application of intermateriality in the study of the ancient world,[6] a method presented as one of the book’s methodological tools. However, since this approach is relatively new for reading classical texts, it is not adequately explained in this chapter, and intermateriality is scarcely utilised in the following chapters. When Böttcher does apply this method, as in the case of the Scylla rock in Sicily in Chapter 14, her points are fascinating and thought-provoking.
Chapters 8-16 are used as case studies for the author’s argument by investigating various episodes from the Metamorphoses. Each of these chapters is further subdivided into a chapter introduction, followed by a sub-chapter, in which the episode at hand is interwoven within the larger world of the poem, a sub-chapter on the episode’s intertextual links, and a short conclusion. Chapter 8 focuses on Sicily, illustrating how this place emerges as a fixed point in a constantly changing world, thus creating internal coherence. The author effectively demonstrates that Ovid’s portrayal of Sicily gestures towards a complex network of intertextual references. Chapter 9 investigates the Salmacis and Hermaphroditus episode, suggesting the association of hermaphroditism with the Romans’ criticism of luxury and its firm connection with effeminacy. In this chapter, Böttcher makes an interesting and unprecedented association between Salmacis’ speech to Hermaphroditus and Nausicaa’s speech to Odysseus in Homer. Intermateriality is usefully applied in this chapter with references to the depiction of hermaphrodites in art contemporary with Ovid’s poem.
Chapter 10 explores the episode of Orpheus and Eurydice, reading it against its famous Virgilian counterpart in the Georgics. The author presents compelling arguments against the common scholarly view that the Ovidian version lacks passion. Chapter 11 focuses on the personification of Fama in the Ovidian epic. Alongside comparing it with the Virgilian Fama in the Aeneid, the author shows Fama’s parallelism with other personified figures of the Metamorphoses related to war, namely Eris, Allecto, and Discordia. Additionally, she underlines Fama’s close connection with the notions of intertextuality and narration.
Chapters 12 and 13 centre on Odysseus, examining the iudicium armorum and Ovid’s literary treatment of Odysseus’ comrades in the Metamorphoses. The author details the use of various rhetorical tropes in Odysseus’ debate with Ajax and visually illustrates the significant increase in violence and grotesqueness in the Ovidian version compared to both the Iliad and the Aeneid, presenting this information in a helpful chart (p. 205). Chapter 13 brings Odysseus’ comrades Achaemenides and Macareus into sharp focus. Böttcher aptly notes the poem’s gestures towards intertextual repetition and memory through the use of ‘reflexive annotations’,[7] such as iterum Polyphemon. Achaemenides, a character created by Virgil, is revisited in the Metamorphoses and paired with Macareus, a character invented by Ovid. This pairing serves to present multiple narrators and perspectives on the Trojan War and Odysseus’ nostos. The author aptly notes that Ovid manages to give voice not only to the heroes but also to figures typically marginalised in epic poetry, without, however, offering ‘spin-offs’ of these secondary figures, but only having them provide accounts of Odysseus’ adventures from their own perspective.
Chapters 14 and 15, by way of a ring composition, take us back to Sicily by focusing on the figures of Scylla and the Cyclops Polyphemus, respectively. The author demonstrates that the Metamorphoses interweaves various literary versions and stages of Scylla’s life with the real-world rock of Scylla in Messina, ultimately construing a multilayered and coherent representation of the figure of Scylla. Likewise, Chapter 15 shows that the Metamorphoses’ Cyclops is a palimpsest of intra- and inter-textual references, which brings together different and often contrasting attributes of the Cyclops.
Chapter 16 offers a conclusion that ties together the previous chapters, demonstrating that ultimately, Ovid adheres to the tradition of Latin epic poets: while the poem regularly perplexes the narrative through the use of numerous embedded stories, the poem’s orientation remains teleological. By reading through the lens of intra- and inter-textuality, Ovids Weltgedicht der Metamorphosen shows that the Metamorphoses encompasses an even wider world and story than Ovid’s epic predecessors, starting from chaos and culminating in the Augustan era.
Overall, the book makes a valuable contribution to the study of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and introduces innovative approaches to applying intertextuality in Latin literature. The author effectively illustrates the poem’s unity by employing intertextuality, highlighting how the complex intra- and inter-textual references create internal coherence.
Works Cited
Barchiesi, A. (2005) Ovidio: Metamorfosi, Vol. I, Libri I-II. A cura di Alessandro Barchiesi; con un saggio introduttivo di Charles Segal, Milan.
Barchiesi, A. (2006) ‘Music for Monsters: Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Bucolic Evolution and Bucolic Criticism’, in Fantuzzi, M. & Papanghelis, T. D. (eds.) Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral, Leiden/Boston, 403-25.
Haug, A., Hielscher, A. & Lauritsen, M. (2022) (eds.) Materiality in Roman Art and Architecture: Aesthetics, Semantics and Function. Berlin/Boston.
Hinds, S. (1998) (1998) Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry, Cambridge/New York.
Karanasiou, A.G. (2020) ‘From Inter-textuality to Inter-mediality: Plutarch’s Lyric Quotations from Greek Tragedy’, in Schmidt, S., Vamvouri, T.M., & Hirsch-Luipold, R. (eds), The Dynamics of Intertextuality in Plutarch, Leiden: 440-548.
Kristeva, J. (1969) Sèméiotikè : Recherches pour une Sémanalyse, Paris.
Sharrock, A. (2000) ‘Introduction’, in Sharrock, A. & Morales, H. (eds.) Intratextuality. Greek and Roman Textual Relations, Oxford/New York: 1-42.
Wheeler, S. (2000) Narrative Dynamics in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Hildesheim.
Notes
[1] See Kristeva (1969).
[2] See the concept of auxesis in Barchiesi (2006) with regards to the Polyphemus episode, in which the increase of the Cyclops’ size and belongings is not devoid of humour.
[3] See Sharrock (2000).
[4] See e.g. Wheeler (2000).
[5] See Barchiesi (2005).
[6] See Karanasiou (2020); Haug, Hielscher & Lauritsen (2022).
[7] For the notion of ‘reflexive annotation’, see Hinds (1998) 3-4.