Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Platonic Corpus

关于奥维德通过《变形记》操纵哲学话语的学术研究非常稀少。在这个狭窄的领域内，人们倾向于将诗歌中充满哲学的比喻、概念和人物视为解释性的鲱鱼，这些比喻、概念和人物要么从属于文学游戏的感知议程，要么（更激进地）旨在质疑哲学话语作为理解世界的一种手段的有效性。[2]哲学可以装饰文本的表面，但是奥维德以典型的轻率对待他的模型;我们不应该被欺骗去寻找《变形记》与哲学传统的接触的任何严肃性或深度，更不用说试图把它完全当作一首哲学导向的诗来读了。从根本上说，我的研究将挑战这一共识，同时通过检查《变形记》与柏拉图语料库的关系，帮助填补奥维德批评中的一个相当大的空白。我希望证明，这是一种比迄今为止所注意到的更微妙、更普遍的对话，这种对话的阐述可能有助于确立奥维德作为哲学传统中一个有洞察力的、原创的声音。第一，因为即使是粗略的阅读《变形记》也会产生许多与柏拉图哲学惊人的相似之处，这些相似之处似乎值得更全面的研究。当然，神创论的教义，轮回的末世论，以及在诗歌的“哲学框架”中提出的灵魂不朽的基于记忆的论点，每一个都邀请柏拉图式的比较。但即使在这些更明显的联系之外，奥维德似乎与柏拉图有着许多共同的关注点，从混合的概念到爱欲/爱的深刻矛盾形象，从诗歌的地位到流动和永恒的基本问题。第二，因为那些在很大程度上影响了先前对奥维德与哲学的关系--哲学和神话文学的话语、论证和意象--的评价的二元性，柏拉图自己也从根本上探讨了这些二元性。（特别是柏拉图）传统，作为绕过预先存在的批判框架的一种手段。最后，因为尽管有这些有希望的联系--以及彼得·凯利·诺伊斯坦丁最近的两篇文章4--但从柏拉图的著作出发对奥维德的文本进行系统分析的基础特别薄弱。因此，我的研究将占据一个空白，不仅在批评的变形记，但也有可能在该领域的柏拉图接受。我预计利用一个主要的互文性的方法，通过这个项目-依赖于近距离阅读的段落从两位作者-与每章侧重于一个特定的哲学概念。我还设想有可能扩展我的论证，包括考虑“哲学奥维德”与后来的思想家的关系，特别是通过维柯发展的“诗意智慧”概念，并通过暗示某些受维柯影响的当代理论家，来追踪一条道路。

Scholarship on Ovid's manipulation of philosophical discourse through the Metamorphoses is notably sparse. Within this narrow field, the tendency has been to view the philosophically-inflected tropes, concepts, and characters which populate the poem as hermeneutic red herrings, which are either subordinate to a perceived agenda of literary play,1 or (more radically) designed to question the validity of philosophical over mytho-literary discourse as a means of understanding the world. 2 Philosophy may adorn the text's surface, but Ovid treats his models with typical flippancy; we should not be deceived into looking for any seriousness or depth to the Metamorphoses' engagement with the philosophical tradition, much less attempt to read it altogether as a philosophically-oriented poem. At root, my research would challenge this consensus, whilst helping to fill a sizeable gap in Ovidian criticism, by examining the Metamorphoses' relationship to the Platonic corpus. I hope to demonstrate that this constitutes a subtler and more pervasive dialogue than has hitherto been noted, one whose exposition may aid in establishing Ovid as a perceptive and original voice within the philosophical tradition in his own right.I focus on this Platonic nexus for three principal reasons. First, because even a cursory reading of the Metamorphoses yields a number of striking parallels to Plato's philosophy, which seem to merit fuller investigation. Certainly, the creationist doctrine, eschatology of reincarnation, and memory-based argument for the soul's immortality forwarded in the poem's 'philosophical frame' each invite Platonic comparison. But even beyond these more apparent links, Ovid seems to share a number of preoccupations with Plato, from the notion of hybridity to the profoundly ambivalent figure of Eros/Amor, from the status of poetry to fundamental questions of flux and permanence. Second, because the binaries which have greatly informed preceding evaluations of Ovid's relationship to philosophy - of philosophical and mytho-literary discourse, argument and image - are themselves radically probed at by Plato.3 It seems feasible, therefore, to ask whether the Metamorphoses might better be viewed as inheriting and further exploring these tensions from within the philosophical (and particularly the Platonic) tradition, as one means of circumnavigating pre-existent critical frameworks. And lastly, because despite such promising connections - and a recent pair of articles by Peter Kelly notwithstanding4 - systematic analysis of Ovid's text in view of Plato's writings is particularly thin on the ground. My research would thus occupy a lacuna not just in criticism on the Metamorphoses, but potentially also in the field of Platonic reception.I anticipate utilising a chiefly intertextual methodology through this project - reliant on close readings of passages from both authors - with each chapter focussing on a particular philosophical concept. I also envisage the possibility of extending my argument to include a consideration of where a 'philosophical Ovid' may stand in relation to later thinkers, tracing a path particularly through the concept of 'poetic wisdom' as developed by Giambattista Vico, and by implication toward certain contemporary theorists who wear Vico's influence.