Ovid was banished in 8AD, to Tomis (now Constanta, in Romania) on the Black Sea coast. Involved on the fringes of power and politics, it seems that Ovid saw but was not directly implicated in some event that antagonised the Emperor. Ovid made amends, to a degree, in the Metamorphoses, where Augustus and Livia are echoed in Jupiter and Juno, and marriage is celebrated in key moments of the text. Intended for the law he instead took up poetry, writing the Amores, and the Art of Love ( Ars Amatoria), works which caused offence in some quarters, including amongst the ruling dynasty. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) was born in Sulmo, Italy in 43BC. Ovid, the ‘Master of Love’, is here the Doctor, though one in whose cures one suspects he himself placed little faith.

However subtle use of the elegiac form tends to operate counter to this aim, rendering the work as much a celebration of relationship as a series of poems against it. The Cures for Love, Remedia Amoris, is a companion piece to the Art of Love, suggesting ways of evading the pain of love, and ending relationships. The whole work gives a lively view of Augustan Rome, while exhibiting the typical charm and beauty of Ovid’s verse. Provocative and light-hearted in tone, it caused offence, and was possibly a factor in, or at least an excuse for, Ovid’s later banishment by Augustus. The Art of Love, Ars Amatoria, was written in 2AD as a series of elegies purporting to teach young men and women how to succeed in the game of lovemaking. His gentle humanism is always evident throughout. Ovid makes extensive use of humour and parody to celebrate the elegy as a creative mode as deserving of immortality as the Virgilian epic. Mildly subversive it was published in 16BC, in five books, but later edited by Ovid into its surviving three-book form. The Amores was Ovid’s first book of poetry, consisting of love elegies, involving the possibly-fictitious Corinna. This work that will still stand forever, when I’m dead. Unwarlike elegies, joyful Muse, farewell, New, Complete English Translations of The Amores, Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris

The art of love by ovid