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Distant Mores, Distant Mores: Persuading the Reader from the Margins in Tristia 2
- Arethusa
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 53, Number 3, Fall 2020
- pp. 175-189
- 10.1353/are.2020.0015
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
The problem of free speech in relation to political power is a major issue of Ovid’s Tristia and ex Ponto collections. A complex blending of literary and rhetorical features allows the poet in exile to associate his self-representation in Tomis with a comprehensive review of his poetic career. From some programmatic statements in Tristia 2, I revisit Ovid’s manipulation of speech in exile. The poet’s persuasive goal about his exilic situation involves the emperor but also a wider audience, which is invited to reconsider Ovid’s poetic status on the margins of the empire and in the margins, or at least between the lines, of his text.