Ovidian Paratexts: Guiding the reader to the Metamorphoses in the early modern Low Countries

Abstract

In the Early Modern Period, Ovid's Metamorphoses was a popular text: printers in the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Low Countries printed no fewer than 108 editions. In Ovidian Paratexts John Tholen investigates what these editions can tell us about the early modern application of the ancient text. Key to this research are paratexts: all elements that printers added to Ovid's text, such as a title page, an index, a preface, or a commentary. Analysis of these elements shows, for example, how editions guide readers to Ovid’s potentially subversive contents. In this way, the research shows how the material text can shed light on the early modern reception of antiquity.