La metamorfosi di Ovidio: aspetti cognitivi e comunicazione

The dissertation starts from a specific comparison between metamorphosis in Ovid’s poem and metamorphosis in the Classical tradition before Ovid. In the Greek tradition, there are problems of evidence: evidemce is fragmentary, not unitary as in Ovid’s case, and its forms are variable, spanning literature but also myth, art, religion, folklore. Work done on this Greek tradition often incurs in the pitfall of assuming that, since Ovid’s work is so unitary and coherent, we must find a similar degree of coherence and unity in the sources of Ovid. On the contrary, I argue, the analysis of Greek metamorphosis should be liberated from Ovid’s dominating influence, and there are reasons to doubt that there was ever, before Ovid, a unitary organisation and representation of metamorphosis. From this background, I progress towards a systematic analysis of Ovidian representations of metamorphosis, the tradition that has been so influential in modern culture, and I argue two main points that I view as essential Ovidian innovations: - metamorphosis tends to be viewed in its paradoxical ‘in fieri’ reality, which is like the production of ‘temporary hybrids’ (Richard Buxton) instead of being viewed as an isolated, aoristic effect of wonderful catastrophe (Frontisi-Ducroux on the Greek tradition): this way Ovid is closer to his imitator Bernini than to the artists of Greek metamorphosis stories on vases - the Roman poet emphasises the problems of communication, language, and expression, more than any Grek predecessor ever did (Forbes Irving), precisely when representing metamorphosis. In the few cases when a Greek story did highlight this aspect (e.g. the Philomela and Procne myth) Ovid veers away from this theme: on the contrary, he introduces and emphasizes problems of ‘voice’, language, and communication in a number of traditional stories. These first results open the way to a consideration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in terms of a pragmatics of communication (a methodology applied by my tutor prof. Ricottilli to a number of Latin texts), although a paradoxical one, and my dissertation then develops a series of related explorations, e.g. working on formulas of salutation, on speeches, on silence and miscommunication, on human and animal language. A rehearsal of Greek examples of metamorphosis to be compared but above all contrasted with Ovid completes my discussion.