Translating Ovid’s 'Metamorphoses' Now: A Q and A with Stephanie McCarter

The ASU Department of English hosted Stephanie McCarter (University of the South)-the first woman to translate Ovid’s "Metamorphoses" into English in over 60 years-in a virtual visit on Thursday, Mar. 21 from 12 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. McCarter is a professor of classical languages and a feminist scholar who will address teaching the mythico-historical narrative poem in a post-#MeToo era. Her visit took place during a meeting of ENG 350: Ancient Greek and Roman Sources of English Literature taught by ASU Associate Professor of English Cora Fox.
Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” written in ancient Rome around 8 AD, is the defining work of the mythic tradition in later English literature. It is the source of stories surrounding many of the central figures of European art and thought: Pygmalion, Narcissus, Daphne, Hermaphroditus, Midas, Philomela, Actaeon, Orpheus, Arachne, Phaeton, Ganymede, Europa . . . just to name a few! There are approximately 250 myths collected in this encyclopedic work. The poem has influenced works of art, literature, and other media for more than two millennia. It was arguably Shakespeare’s favorite source, and he seems to have read it in both Latin and in early English translation. It has inspired writers in many different times and places around the world, and it is often considered the poet’s poem.
McCarter’s new translation of “Metamorphoses” into modern English is the first by a woman since 1955, and she has focused on accurately representing the narratives of sexual violence and other kinds of trauma that repeatedly structure so many of these tales. Her translation--attentive to the politics of sex and gender in the present-highlights Ovid’s experimental investigations of human desire, bodily vulnerability and fluidity, and our implications in material and social worlds of constant change.
McCarter responded to questions from current students in ENG 350 and she also took questions from the public during this live Zoom event.

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