Ovid, << OV ihd >> (43 B.C.-A.D. 17?), was a great Roman poet. He became best known for his witty and sophisticated love poems.
Perhaps Ovid’s most famous work is the Art of Love, which is a kind of manual in verse on how to find and keep a lover. It consists of three books, two addressed to men and one to women, and all written in a humorous, satirical style.
Ovid believed that the Metamorphoses was his greatest work. It is a narrative poem beginning with the creation of the world and ending in Ovid’s time. The poem describes the adventures and love affairs of deities and heroes, with more than 200 tales taken from Greek and Roman legends and myths. Many of the stories involve a metamorphosis (transformation), such as the transformation of a woman into a bird. For information about some of the stories, see Arethusa ; Narcissus ; Pygmalion ; and Pyramus and Thisbe .
Ovid’s other poems include the Heroides (Letters of Heroines) and the unfinished Fasti (The Calendar). The Heroides consists of 21 imaginary letters between famous women of mythology and their husbands or lovers. The Fasti deals with Roman religious festivals and customs and anniversaries of historical events.
Ovid was born in Sulmona, Italy. His full name was Publius Ovidius Naso. In A.D. 8, Emperor Augustus banished Ovid to an isolated fishing village on the Black Sea. Ovid wrote many poems pleading to return to Rome. But his pleas were ignored, and he died in exile.
