Part II comprises five contributions that handle transformation within the work itself. It could easily have included more chapters that explored areas for further reflection that Barchiesi himself suggests (24-29), including deeper connections between Ovid and Hellenistic or Neoteric precedents like Lycophron, Cinna, and Calvus and the connection of the visual spectacle in Ovidian metamorphosis with visual or performing arts and material culture. Part I’s brevity comes as something of a surprise and creates an imbalance with the remaining two sections. For instance, Greek metamorphoses tend to be cast as a single, aoristic moment in time, while Ovid focuses more on the gradual process Greek transformations are conspicuously silent, while Ovid encourages his transforming characters to communicate and emote Hellenistic authors use metamorphosis to emphasize etiology and localized Greek traditions, while Ovid explores its psychological effects on the transformed, eschewing Hellenic localization for global importance. Part I consists of one expansive yet superficial (necessarily, due to space) chapter by Alessandro Barchiesi, who offers novel insights into the differences in Hellenistic authors’ and Ovid’s utilization of metamorphosis. in three distinct stages: comparisons of Ovidian metamorphosis with primarily Hellenistic predecessors (Part I, “Transformations into the Metamorphoses”), explorations of metamorphosis within the work itself (Part II, “Transformations in the Metamorphoses”), and receptions of Ovidian metamorphosis (Part III, “Transformations of the Metamorphoses”). The current volume thus takes an overdue thematic approach to metamorphosis in the Met. 1999), themes (e.g., repetition in Fulkerson and Stover 2016), or objectives (e.g., Ovid handbooks and companions).

The most cited or recent examples prioritize different approaches (e.g., reception in Hardie et al. In the introduction, the editors helpfully situate their volume within the context of recent monographs, but point out how few multi-author volumes have been dedicated to the Metamorphoses (4-5). This engaging volume of ten essays fills a rather surprising lack in Ovidian scholarship: an edited volume about metamorphosis in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Metamorphoses 1