Abstract

This essay interprets Heroides 16, Paris' epistle to Helen, as Ovid's re-imagining of literary history, according to which elegy is born simultaneously with epic. Ovid creates this imaginary history through the figure of Paris, whose self-representation leads to confusion over his identity as a lover or a warrior. The poet exploits Paris' contradictory self-image in order to challenge traditional notions about the status of elegy and epic in the literary hierarchy. Reading in mythological sequence, we are to see Paris as the precursor of elegiac lovers and of epic heroes, the progenitor of both elegy and epic.

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