What are the views and attitudes towards love as presented by Ovid compared to other first
What are the views and attitudes towards love as presented by Ovid compared to other first century Roman poets? Love has in modern times, until relatively recently been inextricably linked with marriage and young people have been encouraged not to indulge in sex before marriage. However during first century Rome this was not necessarily the case. Attitudes to love, sex and marriage varied according to age, wealth, status in society and respectability. ... Provided that you keep off married women, widows, young men and women and boys of free birth, make love at will”. ... This leads to the unsurprising fact that upper class Roman marriages were rarely conducted out of love. Love was severely hindered within marriage, mostly due to the level of modesty expected of a lady and her husband’s conduct towards her. ... Respectable unmarried girls had no love life at all and married ladies, ‘matronae’, lived a limited life. ... Ovid was a Roman poet born in Sulmo, in the Abruzzi, the son of a well-to-do eques. ... He wrote imaginary love letters from ladies of the heroic days to their lords and short poems about his mistress, Corinna. ... Many of the women that Ovid pursues in his poems are married and Corinna was his mistress. Therefore we can conclude that Ovid’s poems were written in explicitly adulterous terms, even after Augustus’ laws against adultery. ... In the Art of love II.359, Ovid warns what happens if you leave your lover alone, with the case of Helen. ... ” Ovid seems to advocate this relationship, “Helen didn’t sin, neither did her so called adulterer.” Ovid accepts that this is common practice. ... ” However in contrast to this Ovid also writes about fidelity, “I am not attracted to thousands, I am not a switch back rider in love. If there be any fidelity in love, you will be my everlasting love.” It may seem hypocritical of Ovid to write about monogamy but it must be remembered that Corinna was married, so technically it was still an affair! Also it seems that Ovid is questioning “IF there be fidelity”. Ovid doesn’t seem sure that it even exists which is apparent in the majority of his poetry, as it all involves affairs with married girls. Ovid in Amores 1. ... He prays for her to love him or at least sleep with him. This is another essential element of Ovid and indeed of society at the time; the subject of sex. Ovid writes about it in a matter of fact way. ... In spite of the fun and frivolity of Ovid we get the sense of a real society behind it all. Ovid writes of striking episodes such as Corinna’s abortion (2. ... Ovid declares his devotion to Corinna, and that he will be her slave: “Accept one who will be your slave through long years”. Yet again Ovid seems to be implying his long lasting fidelity. ... From the start of the Amores one gets the impression of a Latin love Elegy. A typical Latin Love Elegy as described by Joan Booth is “an eternal triangle involving the lover, his beloved and a rival of some kind”. ... This happens in several stages, the first being the arrow of Cupid striking. ... However the influences, scenes and imagery seem to be typical of Elegiac love. Ovid clearly wanted to be thought of as the successor of romantic, elegiac poets such as Catullus, Propertius and Tibullus. However Ovid’s poems seem more cheeky and paradoxical. ... 6, where Ovid is begging to be let in to his lover’s room. This poem is a typical example of the Latin Love elegy as Ovid includes themes that are constant throughout Roman love poetry in Rome. Ovid writes about servitium amoris or the sickness of love. “Love has made me slim enough, halved my weight and altered my limbs”. I find it strange that Ovid attributes to love, which surely is a happy feeling the blame for his dwindling weight and appearance.