Ovid's Metamorphoses - Commentary recommendations?

Latin Learning Latin
1

Today I stumbled upon this fantastic thread where people recommended and discussed a variety of commentaries of Vergil’s Aeneid:

http://discourse.textkit.com/t/vergils-aeneid/14135/1

Could we have something similar for Ovid’s Metamorphoses? Can anyone here please provide me with a brief overview or navigation on the main existing commentaries (or even scholarship)?

Thanks in advance.

2

I’d recommend Bill Anderson’s commentaries, which are adequate for most purposes and have become more or less standard for English-speakers. I think their main deficiency is insufficient appreciation of Ovid’s sense of humor, perhaps of his poetic artistry too.

I wouldn’t recommend Bömer (German). Good for bibliography but utterly soul-destroying.

3

“William Anderson”.

If there’s commentaries in Romance languages I’d like to know too. Sadly I can’t read German. :frowning:

I’d like to hear about his poetic artistry, too.

4

Wilkinson’s Golden Latin Artistry is now more than 50 years old but excellent (he doesn’t have much on Metamorphoses if I remember but never mind, it’s still applicable). The same man’s Ovid Recalled, abridged as Ovid Surveyed and aimed at the general reader, is even older but still well worth reading and focused on Ovid.

5

In Italian there is a recent, very detailed multi-volume commentary in the Fondazione Valla series, published by Mondadori, including text with apparatus and a facing-page Italian translation, like the Loebs (although I think the Italian is on the left-hand page and the Latin is on the right). The commentaries are by various scholars, including some English and American scholars.

http://www.einaudibologna.it/fondazione-l-valla/658-ovidio-metamorfosi-fondazione-valla.html

Amazon.it doesn’t seem to carry these, but you might be able to order them directly from Mondadori if you’re interested in doing so.

There is a multi-volume commentary with text and English translation in the Aris & Phillips series by D. E. Hill.

https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/search?q=ovid+metamorphoses

Unfortunately, I believe Anderson’s commentary does not cover the last third of the Metamorphoses.

I too recommend Wilkinson’s Golden Latin Artistry.