Luiza dos Santos Souza, University of Cincinnati
The poetic persona of the Tristia, who presents himself as the author of the Amores and Ars Amatoria, finds himself in a state of chaotic reevaluation. The literary constraints of exile introduce a new stage in his poetic career, far distant from the overconfidence of his earlier poetic persona(s) and expectations of perennial glory. It has long been observed that Ovid’s exile poetry constitutes a revision of his earlier career (e.g., Nagle 1980, Gibson 1999, Delvigo 2020); in this paper, I enrich our understanding of this poetic career in review by demonstrating that metapoetic metaphors of movement within the Tristia create intertexts with the Amores and Ars Amatoria which retrospectively shatter the author’s illusions of control over his own production.
First, I show how metametric wordplay on feet, programmatically linked in the Amores to the relationship of form to content (Am. 1.1), acts in the Tristia as a marker of disconnection and poetic crisis. The same metrical form whose imbalance, personified as a limp, enhanced Elegy’s beauty (Am. 3.1) is now a source of vice (malum pede, Tr. 2.16) and reason for condemnation of his previous works (Tr. 1.1; Hinds 1985). Because the poet’s physical feet cannot reenter Rome, his return is only possible via his poetic feet (Tr. 1.1.15-16; 1.8.38). Despite this crisis, he continues to produce poetry in the same metrical form that he holds responsible for his banishment.
Second, I press on the metapoetic significance of chariots and ships as intertextual points of contact between the Tristia and the Ars. These traditional didactic images (Volk 2002), both of which the praeceptor employs attempting to confirm his control over his poetics, encounter a sharp reversal in the Tristia. Where the praeceptor once claimed to be the Automedon and Tiphys of Love (Ars 1.8), Ovid now embarks on a literal voyage as a mere passenger dependent on an unskilled pilot (Tr. 1.2.31-32; 1.4.11-16; 1.11.21-22). In consequence, he represents his vehicles—both real and metaphorical—as in constant danger of wrecking on land, at sea, and even in the air. References to the crash of Icarus (Tr. 1.1.89-90; 3.4.21-24) retroactively spotlight the clumsiness of the praeceptor’s self-comparison to Daedalus (Ars 2.21-96) and complicate the exile’s parental posture toward his own work (established in Tr. 1.1 and 1.7) by warning his books in search of favorable reception to not be the child who loses control.
The constant threat of crashing in the Tristia allows the author to review the failures of his elegiac path, revisiting the praeceptor’s lack of control over his own instructions to understand the exile’s lack of control over his own reception; the metapoetic destruction of these means of transportation emphasize his realization of never being fully in control of his own poetics. Even so, these moments also disclose his anxious desire to hold the reins once again through recuperation of his relationship with elegiac verse, which despite the harm it has caused him he nevertheless feels compelled to continue writing, moving again towards hopes of poetic immortality.