TheArs amatoria(The Art of Love) is an instructionalelegyseries in three books by theancient RomanpoetOvid.It was written in 2 AD.
 Title page of a 1644 edition ofArs amatoria,published inFrankfurt. | |
| Author | Ovid |
|---|---|
| Original title | Ars amatoria |
| Language | Latin |
Publication date | c. 2 AD |
| Publication place | Roman Empire |
Content
editBook one ofArs amatoriawas written to show a man how to find a woman. In book two, Ovid shows how to keep her. These two books contain sections which cover such topics as 'not forgetting her birthday', 'letting her miss you - but not for long' and 'not asking about her age'. The third book, written two years after the first books were published, gives women advice on how to win and keep the love of a man ( "I have just armed the Greeks against the Amazons; now,Penthesilea,it remains for me to arm thee against the Greeks... "). Sample themes of this book include: 'making up, but in private', 'being wary of false lovers' and 'trying young and older lovers'.
The standard situations of finding love are presented in an entertaining way. Ovid includes details fromGreek mythology,everyday Roman life and general human experience. TheArs amatoriais composed inelegiac couplets,rather than thedactylic hexameters,which are more usually associated with the didactic poem.
Reception
editThe work was such a popular success that the poet wrote a sequel,Remedia Amoris(Remedies for Love). At an earlyrecitatio,however, S. Vivianus Rhesus, Roman governor ofThracia,is noted as having walked out in disgust.[1]
The assumption that the 'licentiousness' of theArs amatoriawas responsible in part for Ovid'srelegation(banishment) byAugustusin 8 AD is dubious, and seems rather to reflect modern sensibilities than historical fact. For one thing, the work had been in circulation for eight years by the time of the relegation, and it postdates theJulian Marriage Lawsby eighteen years. Secondly, it is hardly likely that Augustus, after forty years unchallenged in the purple, felt the poetry of Ovid to be a serious threat or even embarrassment to his social policies. Thirdly, Ovid's own statement[2]from his Black Sea exile that his relegation was because of 'carmen et error' ('a song and a mistake') is, for many reasons, hardly admissible.
It is more probable that Ovid was somehow caught up in factional politics connected with the succession:Agrippa Postumus,Augustus' adopted son, and Augustus' granddaughter,Vipsania Julilla,were both relegated at around the same time. This would also explain why Ovid was not reprieved when Augustus was succeeded by Agrippa's rivalTiberius.It is likely, then, that theArs amatoriawas used as an excuse for the relegation.[3]This would be neither the first nor the last time a 'crackdown on immorality' disguised an uncomfortable political secret.
Legacy
editTheArs amatoriacreated considerable interest at the time of its publication. On a lesser scale,Martial's epigrams take a similar context of advising readers on love. Modern literature has been continually influenced by theArs amatoria,which has presented additional information on the relationship between Ovid's poem and more current writings.[4]
PioneeringfeministhistorianEmily James Putnamwrote that Medieval Europe, deaf to the humor that Ovid intended, took seriously the mock-analytical framework ofArs amatoriaas a cue for further academic exegesis:
The tendency of theMiddle Agetoward the neat, the systematic, and the encyclopaedic, which made it so easy a prey toAristotle,had the oddest results when directed toward the passion of love. Ovid'sjeu d'esprit,theArs Amatoria,was playfully set in a framework ofAlexandriandidacticism.It was mildly amusing in his day to assume that rules could be laid down, by the use of which any one could become 'a master of the art of love,' to use the phrase ofDiotimainPlato'sSymposium.This work was well known to clerks in its Latin form, and when love became a matter of general theoretical interest, it was rendered into French and became the textbook of the subject. Thanks to its method, love became a department ofscholasticism,a matter of definition and rule.[5]
TheArs amatoriawas included in the syllabuses of mediaeval schools from the second half of the 11th century, and its influence on 12th and 13th centuries' European literature was so great that the German mediaevalist and palaeographerLudwig Traubedubbed the entire age 'aetas Ovidiana' ('the Ovidian epoch').[6]
As in the years immediately following its publication, theArs amatoriahas historically been victim of moral outcry. All of Ovid's works were burned bySavonarolainFlorence, Italyin 1497; an English translation of theArs amatoriawas seized by U.S. Customs in 1930.[7]Despite the actions against the work, it continues to be studied in college courses on Latin literature.[8]
It is possible thatEdmond Rostand's fictionalized portrayal ofCyrano de Bergeracmakes an allusion to theArs amatoria:the theme of the erotic and seductive power of poetry is highly suggestive of Ovid's poem, and Bergerac's nose, a distinguishing feature invented by Rostand, calls to mind Ovid'scognomen,Naso (fromnasus,'large-nosed').
See also
editReferences
edit- ^Agr. De art. am. 378-9
- ^Ov. Tr., 2.207
- ^F. Norwood (1964), 'The Riddle of Ovid's Relegatio', in Classical Philology. 58: 150-63
- ^e.g. Gibson, R., Green, S., Sharrock, A., (eds.) 'The Art of Love: Bimillennial Essays on Ovid's Ars amatoria and Remedia Amoris', OUP 2007; Sprung, Robert C., 'The Reception of Ovid's Ars amatoria in the Age of Goethe', Senior Thesis, Harvard College, 1984; König, J. M., 'Ovids Ars amatoria und Remedia amoris im Licht ihrer Rezeption. Rollenspiele erotodidaktischer Kommunikation', wbg Academic 2023.
- ^Putnam, Emily James, "The Lady of the Castle,"The Atlantic Monthly,Vol CVI (1910), p.355.
- ^McKinley, K.L., Reading the Ovidian Heroine, Brill, Leiden, 2001, xiii
- ^Haight, A. L. and Grannis, C. B., Banned Books 387 BCE to 1978 CE, R.R. Bowker & Co, 1978
- ^Knox, Peter E., ed. (2012).A Companion to Ovid.John Wiley & Sons.ISBN978-1118556665.
TheArs amatoria[...] now has an established place on university curricula.
External links
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