The Art of Love

With its jaunty, cunning and infernally clever rhyming couplets, Tom Payne’s new translation is an utter treat from first to last…a sparkling foreword by Hephzibah Anderson…this effervescent Art of Love will be a lasting joy. * Independent *
This sums Ovid up: Cerebral and sensual; but wit first – Ruth Padel
Rome’s wittiest poet * Independent on Sunday *
His wit, fluency and erotic treatises made him one of the most influential writers of ancient times * Independent *
Much of Ovid’s advice would not go amiss today * Guardian *
With its jaunty, cunning and infernally clever rhyming couplets, Tom Payne’s new translation is an utter treat… Payne’s commentary, and a sparkling foreword by Hephzibah Anderson, make the clear the deep gulf that separates his world from ours. Nonetheless, this effervescent Art of Love will be a lasting joy… On Valentine’s, and indeed every other day, legalistic lovers would do well to mark his words – Boyd Tonkin * Independent *
Pious and bawdy by turns, advocating high-mindedness, Ovid keeps readers guessing as to his true opinions. Payne’s new translations steers a generally steady course between cheekiness and gravitas, while his footnotes - which reference Delia Smith, Joni Mitchell and Woody Allen - add an eccentric gloss. – Adrian Turpin * Financial Times *
Payne’s notes are excellent… commendably lively in the spirit of Ovid – Bernard O’Donoghue * Times Literary Supplement *

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in Italy on 20 March 43 BC. He was educated in Rome and worked as a public official before taking up poetry full-time. His earliest surviving work is the collection of love poems called the Amores, which was followed by the Heroides. The Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) and the Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love) were probably written between 2 BC and 2 AD. These were followed by his two epic poems the Fasti and the Metamorphoses. In 8 AD Ovid fell out of favour with the Emperor Augustus due to a ‘carmen et error’ (‘a poem and a mistake’) and was banished to what is now Romania. While in exile he wrote Tristia, Ibis and the Epistulae ex Ponto which consists of letters appealing for help in his efforts to be recalled to Rome. Ovid died in exile in 18 AD.

Tom Payne was born in 1971. He read Classics at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. For four years he was deputy literary editor of the Daily Telegraph. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Dorset, and teaches English and Classics at Sherborne School.

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