The

is the first work of the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE – 17 CE). It is a collection of three books of poems belonging to the genre of Latin Love Elegy.

Ovid’s involvement with poetry started early in his life, at about the age of eighteen, as he himself implies (Tr. 4.10.57f.): “carmina cum primum populo iuvenilia legi, / barba resecta mihi bisve semelve fuit” [“when first I read my youthful songs in public, my beard had been cut but once or twice”, trans. A.L. Wheeler]. Originally, the Amores were a collection of five books of elegies, apparently published separately roughly between 22-21 and 15 BCE. Nevertheless, this original collection has not come down to us. What we have today is a second edition of the work, in three books, comprising 15, 20 and 15

2077 words

Citation: Michalopoulos, Andreas. "Amores". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6720, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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