What we’re about
BCE is a literary conversation group where we read together “classic” texts in a broad sense, from before the Christian era, anything loosely before/during the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine I (272–337), his successor and son Constantius II and his nephew, Julian the Apostate, who rejected Christianity and promoted Neoplatonic Hellenism as a philosophy, and the worship of the traditional Roman gods as ritual practice.
BCE expects participants to have read the text and have formulated questions for discussion and have marked a few passages that we can read aloud and discuss. Participants have the same edition in front of them so they can create a common experience.
Examples of texts we can take on: Seneca, Lucan, the epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrew book of Genesis, the plays of Aristophanes, Homer’s Odyssey, Ovid, Song of Songs, or the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe.
Upcoming events (1)
See all- 91: Ovid: Metamorphoses - 1. IntroductionLink visible for attendees
We'll set out on a reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 CE), using a new translation of this wide ranging masterpiece by Stephanie McCarter,
For this introductory session please read beforehand:
From the translation we are using, the Introduction and the A Note on the Translation.
NB Please include reading the Notes in the back for the material we are covering. NB. Since the translation by McCarter is not a line-by-line translation the line numbers in other translations and in the Latin text will differ.
Read these key passages where Ovid refers to himself.
- Metamorphoses, Book 15, Lines 933-942 (Epilogue)
- Metamorphoses, Book 1, Lines 1- 4 (the Proem)
Read and pronounce the Latin here
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.02.0029
Take guidance from this video
https://youtu.be/FBwwNXbaznQ?si=LwD7azxkow-e8TKL- Metamorphoses, Book 10, Lines 93-113 (Orpheus Charms the Trees)
- Metamorphoses, Book 10, Lines 263-293 (Pygmalion and the Ivory Statue)
- Metamorphoses, Book 15, Lines 64-81, 178-188, 269-289 (Pythagoras on metamorphosis)
••••
We're using a new translation of this wide ranging masterpiece that covers the history of the world, from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar in 42 BC in a mythico-historical framework comprising over 250 myths, 15 books, and 11,995 lines. The translation is by Stephanie McCarter, a Classics professor at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee: Metamorphoses (A Penguin Classics) – Published November 8, 2022.
This will take us well into 2025. BCE read the Metamorphoses before in 2020/2021.
For this first meeting we'll discuss McCarter's introductory material, present an overview of Ovid's works and life, plan the different formats of our sessions (interactive readings, theme-based sessions, looking at art work inspired by Metamorphoses, discussions of films inspired by its themes, later poets inspired by Ovid, Ovid's sources), and read the passages referred to above.
A Latin text is online at https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.02.0029 (Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892).
