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6 classes
The five paintings shown here (Actaeon, Andromeda, Venus and Adonis, Danaë, and Europa) are among those painted by Titian for Philip II of Spain, based on myths told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses (8 CE). They are but one example of the hold Ovid had on the imagination of poets, artists, and opera composers in the renaissance and baroque—one that continues to this day, for instance in adaptations by the poet Ted Hughes (from whom we borrow our title) and director Mary Zimmerman. In this six-week course, we shall look at Ovid himself in the crux between the death of the old world and the birth of the new—and, by following selected stories, we shall look at the many different ways his work has been translated and adapted from the renaissance to the present.
Roger Brunyate first studied Ovid in Latin at school, and has retained an interest through his degrees in literature and art history, and in his long career as a director of opera.