Metamorphosis: The Changing Face of Ovid in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Metamorphosis: The Changing Face of Ovid in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Edited by A <scp>lison</scp> K <scp>eith</scp> and S <scp>tephen</scp> R <scp>upp</scp> . (Publications of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies; Essays and Studies, 13). Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2007. 350 pp. Pb.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This volume of essays, originating in a conference held during the Toronto-wide Arts Festival on the theme of Metamorphosis in 2004–2005, offers both a focused and productively varied insight into medieval and early modern Ovidianism. Its specific focus on the tremendously influential Metamorphoses fills an important niche in general reflection on classical influence on the period 1100-1650 (with a post-script on Milton). Its variety stems from the pan-European scope of the volume (touching England (five essays), France (four), Italy (three) and Spain (two), though not German or Dutch cultures), and the range of cultural materials addressed: literary texts form the backbone of works examined, but non-literary reception (addressing demonology and alchemy), as well as the visual arts (illustration in manuscript and printed editions, and painting) are also analysed. Tales from across the Metamorphoses are represented, with repeated attention to the first five books (especially Acteon, Jason and Narcissus) highlighting the different contexts, literary and political, in which Ovid's most compelling myths were recycled. The editors' lucid and engaging introductory chapter (‘After Ovid’) opens up the complexity of Ovidian reception, evoking competing artistic and rhetorical contexts, influence stemming from both style and subject, artistic wit as well as the potential for reflection on serious political issues. Thirteen ensuing chapters by senior scholars and more junior researchers consider themes of allegory, authority, Christianisation, gender, knowledge (especially self-knowledge), storytelling, vision, and voice in reception of Ovid's work, through a range of approaches including palaeography, codicology, philology, and comparative literary study. Contributors are as sensitive to the varied transmission of the Metamorphoses, in both Latin and vernacular versions, commentaries and moralisations, as to the varied readership of the volume: each essay is admirably accessible in its introduction of the specific material for analysis, contextualisation of that material in scholarly tradition, and a lively jargon-free written style. English translations are provided for all quotations. French material is examined in five essays: on the circulation of the Metamorphoses in medieval France through a varied commentary tradition (Coulson), on ethical reading and the Ovide moralisé (Desmond), on interpreting metaphor and on the relationship between vision, knowledge, and the female body in Christine de Pizan (Akbari and Zalamea), and comparing Petrarch's and Scève's use of the Acteon myth to explore poetic voice (Nazarian). Incisive close-reading characterises all five, which also show how Ovidian contextualisation helps to re-orient critical perspective. Without challenging de Pizan's importance in medieval Ovidianism, it is perhaps a shame that an essay on fourteenth-century reception in Machaut or Froissart could not have been included also. A concluding chapter by Maggie Kilgour interrogates the idea of change itself, a conceptual level of reflection in which some of the most stimulating essays likewise engage (Akbari, Fumo, Fox, Zak). The volume ends with a comprehensive bibliography and appendix including full-colour plates. An aide-mémoire list of the chapters of the Metamorphoses could also have been useful for the reader's cross-reference in this otherwise excellent resource, which both establishes the poetic elasticity of Ovid's work and explores in detail its significant intellectual impact on the culture of medieval and early modern Europe.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".