identity

Question 1

fracturing of the poetic ego in the tristia

Answer 1

tristia 1.1 - ‘you go in place of me’

sends another version of himself into exile - perhaps the poetic ego itself - drawing attention to the artifice of his poetic construction in order to legitimise his past writing - it wasn’t real and neither was the voice that espoused it.

but does he send his actual self into exile or his poetic ego? how can we tell when everything is artifice - is this his least or most authentic self?

Question 2

corporeal and temporal/geographical dismemberment in tristia 1.3

Answer 2

‘dividor’ in regards to the poet - ovid links it to the mutilatiuon of Absyrtus by Medea when fleeing her country - ovid links this to the origins of tomis - place as the symbolic home of dismemberment - ovid is severed from the world he inhabited and the one he created

fragmentation and destruction of the poet

Question 3

narcissus and self awareness

Answer 3

is he tragically self aware? too aware of himself? no he’s only familiar with a reflection of himself, no less occupied with his true being than echo

literal splintering of the self when he passes - his should descending to the underworld but also immortalised above ground as a flower