Ovid, Heroides

Harvard FAS

The Heroides is an extraordinary collection of twenty-one letters in elegiac couplets by the poet Ovid. They represent a unique experiment with the female voice in Latin elegy, staging various heroines mostly of myth (e.g., Penelope, Medea, Ariadne) writing to their absent lovers. Fifteen single Heroides are followed by three pairs consisting of a letter and a response by the male lover. The collection is an interesting case study of issues of authorship, attribution and transmission: the…