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  • A Comment-ary

    Spring                                                                  New Beltane Moon

    An interesting proposition.  Greg, my Latin tutor, and I have talked off and on about  writing a commentary for new learners of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Today he asked me to think about it with an eye toward moving our teacher-student relationship more toward collaborators.  It sounds fun and worthwhile to me.

    Ovid’s text serves as the headwaters for most of Greek mythology as it enters the Western literary stream.  In that sense it is an important work in the historical study of Western literature.  A great read, too, it’s full of stories, captivating narratives that have a major twist at the end, so it is, as well, an excellent example of Western literature itself.

    And commentaries last.  A good commentary on The Metamorphoses, even one that covers only part of the 15 books, could introduce students to this elegant citizen of Augustan Rome for decades, even centuries to come.