Ovid in French: Reception by Women from the Renaissance to the Present (Classical Presences)

This collection of essays examines the ways Ovid's diverse œuvre has been translated, rewritten, adapted, and responded to by a range of French and Francophone women from the Renaissance to the present. It aims to reveal lesser-known voices in Ovidian reception studies, and to offer a wider historical perspective on the complex question of Ovid and gender. Ranging from Renaissance poetry to contemporary creative-criticism, it charts an understudied strand of reception studies, emphasizing how a longer view allows us to explore and challenge the notion of a female tradition of Ovidian reception. The range of genres analysed here--poetry, verse and prose translation, theatre, epistolary fiction, autofiction, autobiography, film, creative critique, and novels--also reflect the diversity of the Ovidian texts in reception from the Heroides to the Metamorphoses, from the Amores to the Ars Amatoria, from the Tristia to the Fasti. The study brings an array of critical approaches to bear on well-known authors such as George Sand, Julia Kristeva, and Marguerite Yourcenar, as well as less-known figures, from contemporary writer Linda Lê to the early modern Catherine and Madeline Des Roches, exploring exile, identity, queerness, displacement, voice, expectations of modesty, the poetics of translation, and the problems posed by Ovid's erotized violence, to name just some of the volume's rich themes. The epilogue by translator and novelist Marie Cosnay points towards new eco-critical and creative directions in Ovidian scholarship and reception. Students and scholars of French Studies, Classics, Comparative Literature and Translation Studies will find much to interest them in this diverse collection of essays.

Helena Taylor, University of Exeter,Fiona Cox, University of Exeter

Fiona Cox was educated at the University of Bristol, where she gained a BA Hons in French and Latin (First class) and a PhD for a thesis entitled Virgil's Presence in Twentieth Century French Literature. She previously held positions at the Université Michel de Montaigne III in Bordeaux, and at University College, Cork, She is currently Associate Professor in French and Comparative Literature and Head of Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies at the University of Exeter. Her research areas are classical reception in modern French literature and contemporary women's writing and the works of Victor Hugo.

Helena Taylor completed her AHRC-funded DPhil (PhD) at University of Oxford in 2013, while Lectrice at Paris-IV Sorbonne. She holds a BA in Classics and French (First class) and a Masters in European Literature from the University of Oxford. She subsequently held a Laming Junior Research Fellowship at the Queen's College, before taking up a Lectureship in French Studies at Exeter in 2015, where she is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow.