Μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος: scelte biotiche e interdetti negli Amores

Abstract

The Amores’ collection is rich in declarations of literary intents, among which the introductory poem stands out: in this elegy the poet announces a metabasis eis allo genos, by blending echos from Bio frr. 3 e 10 G. with echoes from Prop. 2.13a.1-4, in order to legitimise the transition from the original epic inspiration to the elegiac one. The motif occurs again in 2.1 and 18: in the first case Ovid justifies, for the second time, this evolution, in the latter he informs the reader of his comeback to the erotic elegy, after a break in the space of the tragedy and of the didascalic and/or epistolary poetry with erotic content (Ars, Heroides). Later, in Am. 3.1 the famous dispute between Elegy and Tragedy proposes again the poet’s intention to deal with the Hochliteratur, although he temporarily defers this purpose, in order to compose the last book of the Amores. In 3.15, in the end, by following the model of Callimachus (Aet. fr. 112 Pf.), Ovid, a lover of the polyeideia, makes his farewell to the elegi, because he is convinced that he should deal with an area maior, without untrue modesty, in order to assure the Tragedy of a nomen and himself of a space appropriate to the animus.