Abstract

Ovid’s Oenone in Heroides 5, her attempt to win back Paris, is a deft manipulator not only of pastoral and elegy, as previously recognized, but also of epic. This essay illustrates both the nymph’s careful deployment of epic themes and that her approach is a necessary response to Paris’ own change of heart and genre as evidenced in Heroides 16. In particular, Oenone’s version of her past history with Paris, their separate accounts of Paris’ recognition and judgment, and Oenone’s attempts to present herself as appropriate to his epic future show the importance of epic in this correspondence.

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