ABSTRACT
The Ancient Roman poet of change, Ovid, provided an impetus for artistic creation in the early modern period, leading to his widespread influence throughout the world and his long, rich, global afterlife. Ovid provided alternative structures, methods, and perspectives – all of which enabled the English stage to experiment with strategies of adaptation, variances of dramatic form, and concepts of theatrical arts. Ovid’s innovative approach to appropriations, adaptations, and translations of inherited Greek and Roman material inspired Renaissance artists, as it spoke to their shared vision and the nature of mythology itself. Ovid was especially influential in the Renaissance practices of imitatio and translatio because of his unique uses of them as a poet. In the English public theater, Ovidian metamorphosis revolutionized the theatrical medium by conceiving “personation” as metamorphic illusion. The global Ovid was thus metamorphosed again and again on the local Shakespearean stage.
