The Medieval French Ovide Moralisé - (Gallica) by K Sarah-Jane Murray & Matthieu Boyd (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

First English translation of one of the most influential French poems of the Middle Ages.

The anonymous Ovide moralisé (Moralized Ovid), composed in France in the fourteenth century, retells and explicates Ovid's Metamorphoses, with generous helpings of related texts, for a Christian audience. Working from the premise that everything in the universe, including the pagan authors of Graeco-Roman Antiquity, is part of God's plan and expresses God's truth even without knowing it, the Ovide moralisé is a massive and influential work of synthesis and creativity, a remarkable window into a certain kind of medieval thinking. It is of major importance across time and across many disciplines, including literature, philosophy, theology, and art history.

This three volume set offers an English translation of this hugely significant text - the first into any modern language. Based on the only complete edition to date, that by Cornelis de Boer and others completed in 1938, it also reflects more recent editions and numerous manuscripts. The translation is accompanied by a substantial introduction, situating the Ovide moralisé in terms of the reception of Ovid, the mythographical tradition, and its medieval French religious and intellectual milieu. Notes discuss textual problems and sources, and relate the text to key issues in the thought of theologians such as Bonaventure and Aquinas.

Review Quotes

Murray and Boyd's three-volume translation of the anonymous OM is accessible, learned, and enjoyable to read, and is unlikely to be superseded for a very long time. It is moreover a triumph of both translation and collaboration, as the list of contributors to the project attests.-- "SEHEPUNKTE"

[A] masterclass in what modern scholarly translation should be. Just as the author of the Ovide rendered the Metamorphoses accessible to those for whom the original language and content would have been difficult to interpret, so Murray and Boyd open up the Ovide to a new generation of readers.-- "TLS"