This is one of the most famous works in Roman literature. It is a very long collection of stories from myth and legend, all involving a transformation or change in shape or form. The stories are generally told in a light, playful manner. It is set out in fifteen books, totalling 12,000 lines (a typical length for an epic poem.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (published 8AD) is probably intended as a satirical, irreverent response to The Aeneid of Virgil (published c 19BC), a serious and noble work. The legends are set out in chronological order, forming a sort of zany history of the world, from the creation to Julius Caesar, so it is effectively making fun of serious epic.
Still, Metamorphoses remains one of our best sources for Greek myths, with many stories set out in full, including Daedalus and Icarus, Orpheus and Eurydice, Diana and Actaeon, Narcissus and Echo, Baucis and Philemon and Pygmalion. (Greek myths were not written down much when they were a live part of Greek oral culture, probably because everyone knew them, though they did form the main content of epic and tragedy. They were recorded fully centuries later.)
Metamorphoses is the largest work by Ovid, an eminent Roman poet at the time of Augustus. Ovid was a very witty and irreverent writer, who mainly wrote light-hearted and satirical works on matters of love. He eventually fell out of favour with the emperor Augustus because of ‘a poem and a mistake’ (carmen et error), probably because Ovid’s irreverence clashed with Augustus’ drive to improve morality. Ovid was banished in exile to the Black Sea, which for an urbane bon viveur based in Rome was a terrible fate.
However, Ovid has remained a favourite among Roman authors and has influenced many later writers. William Shakespeare drew much content from his poems and Ovid was certainly the Roman writer whose work he knew best.
Reading:
BBC programme ‘Ovid: The Poet and The Emperor’ presented by Michael Wood https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09g0l2q
Full programme not currently available, but you can watch four short clips.
‘Ovid. A Very Short Introduction’ (2020)by Llewellyn Morgan. https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Ovid-by-Llewelyn-Morgan-author/9780198837688Recent, acclaimed overview
A general overview ‘The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman influences on Western literature’ (1952) by Gilbert Highet https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-classical-tradition/gilbert-highet/harold-bloom/9780199377695?awaid=3787&utm_source=redbrain&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=css&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIk56a6bm38AIVVevtCh0pYQKjEAQYAiABEgLrNvD_BwE
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