Ovid's Metamorphoses

Ovid

Arthur Golding's translation of 1567
Introduction by John Frederick Nims

Take a Moment and read an excerpt from this book.

Since its first publication in 1567, Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid has had an enormous influence on English literature and poetry. This is the translation that Shakespeare knew, read, and borrowed from. Golding's witty and beautiful verse continues to delight today's readers. This volume promises to be a valuable resource for students and teachers of Ovid and Shakespeare indeed, for anyone interested in the foundations of English literature.

"Ovid was Shakespeare's favorite classical poet. Both are writers who probe our humanity with great rigor, but ultimately do so in a spirit of sympathy for our frailties and indulgences. Ovid's world shuttles between human passions and natural phenomena. Shakespeare, with the assistance of Arthur Golding, carried the magic of that world into the medium of theatre." —From Jonathan Bate's Essay

"This 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses . . . is tough, surprising, and lovely . . . To read it is to understand the Renaissance view of the classical world, storytelling and also Shakespeare's language and worldview." —A.S.Byatt

"The most beautiful book in the English language." —Ezra Pound

"Absolutely essential" —Library Journal

"It is a tour de force of translation, and it deserves, more than 400 years after its composition, to be read." —Rain Taxi Review of Books

From the Introduction by John Frederick Nims:

"[Golding's translation] was the English Ovid from the time of publication in 1567 until about a decade after the death of Shakespeare in 1616. The Ovid, that is, for all who read him in English during the greatest period of our literature. And its racy verve, its quirks and oddities, its rugged English gusto, is still more enjoyable, more plain fun to read, than any other Metamorphoses in English."

Related Item(s)

The 64 Sonnets John Keats Introduction by Edward Hirsch Trade Paper, 145 pp., $9.00 Quantity in Basket: None	Retail: $12.00. BACKLIST SALE PRICE $9.00 John Keats is among the greatest English poets. (He himself imagined he would be counted so!) For some readers, his odes define the essence of poetry. We also discover in Keats a great composer of sonnets. Here, for the first time published in a separate edition, are all sixty-four sonnets, the first written when Keats . . . [read more]
My Business is Circumference Edited by Stephen Berg Trade Paper, 294 pp., $26.95 Quantity in Basket: None	Twenty-eight distinguished contemporary American poets provide a multifaceted view of the creative process. Each poet has contributed a poem and chosen several poems by other poets that have influenced it. In an essay, each poet then describes how those influences have led to a sense of poetic mastery. The Contributors: A.R. Ammons L.S. Asekoff S . . . [read more]