Ovid, Metamorphoses

Ovid's Metamorphoses begins by promising to describe the way in which bodies change into new forms, but immediately follows into a primal myth of the creation of the world. Indeed, the poem as a whole is seemingly obsessed with myths of creation, human and divine. I would like to examine three particular episodes in Ovid's epic -- the myths of Arachne and Daedalus in Books VI and VIII, and the speech of Pythagoras in the final book (XV) -- in order to examine Ovid's handling of myths of creation. I hope to demonstrate by way of conclusion that although Ovid interestingly explores the correspondences between craftsmanship (a way of creating things) and parentage (a way of creating human beings), his ultimate concern is with his own medium, which is poetry. In some sense, the proliferation of creation myths within Ovid's poem are all directed toward a covert self-analysis...
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