Ovid’s poetry demands attention in today’s society. His works such as “Amores” and “Heroides” exemplify his amorous and sexually playful nature. Above all, his works dealt very strongly with self-indulgence, but, more notably, a rather peculiar and seemingly obsessive curiosity in the ideas of love and sex. However, we can see that today, these writings actually went directly against the interplay of popular religion and belief in his time. Rome, under Augustus, underwent, as it did quite frequently, a very long period of conservatism and traditional beliefs; Ovid’s poetry clashed very strongly with this. Sexual scandals, challenges against the status quo, and deviating ideas on the traditional ideas of love were frowned very strongly upon in the strongly religious society at the time. However, Ovid is a frighteningly blatant representation of a society that was ready for revolution and ready for a shift from its traditional beliefs. His creativity and innovation, like many others, inevitably began to pour out in forms of his writing. Ovid’s work shows us that he broke free from a society that bound him with the chains of conformity; conservatism could hold no leash upon him.
We see blatantly that Ovid's work did break from the standard and we see that evident from today. The response shows how Ovid's work were not of the norm at that time and did play against what was considered accustom. The rash differentiation from everything clashed heavily with the current religion at the time so this did address how Ovid's works noted on religion but did little else in representing itself in how it related with science. It did have some meaning towards the aesthetics at the time which was in association with religion. The sex scandals and love were against religion and by far: law. So it went against the publics normal theory of societal customs.
ReplyDeleteWe find it very interesting and invigorating that your group did not write about the most recognized choice of literature of the time: "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles. Like Ovid, your group did not conform to common practices and decided to think outside the box! This is a very interesting take on the question, because you provided a counterexample to the society of the time. However, have you considered the impacts of Ovid's poetry and beliefs on the aesthetics and science of the time? Besides the fact that you did not address those aspects of the synthesis question, this overall is a good response. One more tip is to use more specific examples of how his work translated into society.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janelle, Nancy, Zach, and Kelsey
(Wylie P5 T6)