Ovid The Poet

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

serious career.
"It did not work. Fathers of poets seem to have a penchant for trying to turn their male offspring into lawyers, doctors, or engineers. Usually this stratagem is effective because most sons are not poets. Most fathers confronted with the problem of a versifying son, therefore, turn out to be right; Ovid's father turned out to be wrong" (Luce 785).
Ovid sincerely attempted to satisfy the demands of his father, but failed horribly. He abandoned his law studies and he drifted off to book merchants and poetry readings. He also married, but swiftly divorced, the woman his father had chosen for him. He was clearly strong-minded and independent. Ovid became more interested with the world of poetry. He also became acquainted with most of the leading poets of the time. Thus, at approximately at the age of twenty, Ovid launched into his career as poet. Up to this point, the poet's life was basically ho-hum.
"Until the catastrophe in A.D. 8, when Augustus exiled him to Tomis ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

visions of human life, the collisions of political necessity with poetic freedom, of pragmatic with a humanism that is grounded in religious intuitions, of the contingencies of history with moral imagination" (Luce 788).
Ovid found himself exiled to Tomis from Rome. The exact circumstances of this exile are unknown, for even Ovid himself shrouds them in mystery. He and his friends who practiced the same loose mindset did not take Augustus's efforts seriously.
"What Ovid and his playmates did not understand, what would have appalled them had they been able to grasp it, was that Augustus was utterly, deadly serious in his efforts to purify and revitalize the social patterns of ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: