I have never seen the rule for syllabification stated so clearly and crisply-”a syllable starts with a consonant if it can.” Nor have I ever seen this simple point about dactylic hexameter made in print-”If a foot begins – u, the next syllable must be u and the next -.” The words “quantity” and “stress” are absent from the discussion vowels are “long” or “short,” syllables are “heavy” or “light.” He moots the question of accent, but by using the terms “heavy”/”light” and by representing dactyls and spondees as “tum ti ti and tum tum respectively, he certainly implies a system of accented downbeats. The section modestly headed “Some features of this selection” is actually a masterful two-page assessment of Ovid’s mind at work on “the fantasies of myth.” The section on “Ovid and epic” locates the work as “an epic with a difference ” the section on “Style” considers three aspects of Ovid as a rhetorical poet and some features of his verse which contribute to its speed. The sixteen-page introduction treats the usual topics, but also includes brief remarks on the sensitive issue of rape, and a sampling of scholarly opinion about the poem. Other ancillary matter includes a general introduction, a brief “Glossary of technical literary terms”-from “aetiology” to “tricolon” (others are defined later as needed, including locus amoenus, ekphrasis, catalogue, patronymic, and synizesis), an introduction to meter, “Suggestions for further reading” (actually a two-part bibliography), and a “Grammatical index” of features commented upon in the notes, complete with references to Wheelock and Reading Latin, as well as three maps and five other illustrations. The style is colloquial, even chatty: one finds expressions such as “pay-back time,” a reference to Phaethon’s “Granny Tethys,” and puns such as “tour de farce.” In fact these are interpretive gems, which expound upon typical elements of Ovidian practice, locate passages in the epic tradition and in Ovid’s earlier work, cross-reference other episodes, etc. J modestly describes these comments as “occasionally embellished paraphrase” which point out important detail and the story’s unfolding logic. 5-15 lines) with notes on vocabulary, grammar, etc., followed by a “Comment” section. The bulk of each episode consists of short sections of text (ca. Each episode (J calls them “passages”) begins with a brief section of “Background” on its context in the poem and ends with a “Study section” of roughly a half-dozen items. 2 J sensibly abridges or condenses some episodes, e.g., the lines about setting up the looms for Arachne’s contest are given in English translation, and both speeches and catalogues have been cut from the Phaethon episode. Nineteen episodes, totaling about 2000 lines, round up many of the usual suspects, e.g., Apollo and Daphne, Echo and Narcissus, Pygmalion, but also include five not usually selected for a text of this kind-Teiresias, Arethusa, Cephalus and Procris, Byblis, and Venus and Adonis. It is not an exaggeration for the blurb to claim that “No other intermediate text is so carefully designed to make reading Ovid a pleasure.” Sophisticated as well as user-friendly, it would also be ideal for graduate students who have come to Latin late but whose work requires a knowledge of the Metamorphoses, e.g., those interested in Spanish Baroque literature. 1 Reading Ovid would be appropriate, therefore, for the many US college students who begin Latin with Wheelock. Designed for “post-beginners,” it assumes only that its intended audience will have completed an introductory course based on a text such as Wheelock or Jones’ own Reading Latin, both of which are cited as grammar references. Is reviewing a textbook without having used it in the classroom like writing about a new car model after only looking at it in the showroom? If so, I can’t wait to take Peter Jones’ Reading Ovid out for a spin.
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