ABSTRACT
This essay explores relations between the passions and progress in Ovid’s epic poem, the Metamorphoses, by focusing on six tales of disastrous passion. In each instance, physical impasse – an inability to progress – provides a means of representing moral impasse of the type Aristotle characterized as akrasia. Each of the female protagonists in these tales attempts to master her passion (and thus to progress) through the manipulation of language, but (with one exception – arguably the only tale in the Metamorphoses with a positive outcome) none is successful. The physical impasse experienced by these heroines is often followed, after a moment of crisis, by dramatic movement; but that movement is impetuous or even mad – it does not represent moral progress. In fact, in each of the tales – again, with the exception of the anomalous “happy ending” in the case of Iphis – disordered passion not only impedes moral progress, it introduces the element of murder in the family, thus threatening perhaps the most basic form of progress, the chronological succession of generations.
