Can I read Heroides on EtoBox?

Heroides by Isbell, Harold;Ovid is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Heroides about?

Written in the form of poetic letters from women to their absent lovers, the first fifteen of the Heroides sensitively portray a range of emotions from love to anger at betrayal. By means of this unusual art form, Ovid personalizes and brings to life many of the outstanding women of classical myth, such as Penelope, Dido and Ariadne. The final 'double letters' of the book allow legendary heroes such as Paris to initiate the correspondence and their lovers to respond to their pleas. All the letters are alive with the tension between private love and public law; each is written in the urgency of a moment of crisis, the writer is impressing his or her own character on love's irrationality, fury, tenderness, despair and longing. And while Ovid's verse-letter form, so slyly perfect to convey the follies of love, makes the Heroides rich in irony, it is richer still in poetry and desire. Harold Isbell's translation and metre perfectly capture the lightness and nuances of Ovid's original.

Who reads Heroides?

Author

Isbell, Harold;Ovid

Publisher

Penguin Group USA, Inc.

Published

1990

Language

EN

ISBN

9781101490594

Category

nonfiction

Rating

4.1 / 5 (26 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-13