A series of letters purportedly written by Penelope, Dido, Medea, and
other heroines to their lovers, the Heroides represents Ovid's initial
attempt to revitalize myth as a subject for literature. In this book,
Howard Jacobson examines the first fifteen elegaic letters of the
Heroides.
In his critical evaluation, Professor Jacobson takes into consideration
the twofold nature of the work: its existence as a single entity with
uniform poetic structure and coherent goals, and its existence as a
collection of fifteen individual poems. Thus, fifteen chapters are
devoted to a thorough analysis and interpretation of the particular
poems, while six additional chapters are concerned with problems that
pertain to the work as a whole, such as the nature of the genre, the
role of rhetoric, theme, and variation, and the originality of Ovid.
Special attention is given to the application of modern psychological
criticism to the delineations of the pathological psyche in the letters.
In an additional chapter on the chronology of Ovid's early amatory
poetry, the author challenges and revises the traditional dating of the
Heroides.
Originally published in 1974.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
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