ABSTRACT
Narratives of metamorphosis, that is descriptions of the transformation of man or woman to animal, vegetable, or mineral in a rapid, radical and magical process, are the product of and pander to the popular imagination. Angela Carter's short stories are apotheosis of postmodern metamorphosis. Carter drew widely on both classical myth and folk-tales in her short stories and (post)modernizes traditional metamorphosis by focusing instead on the hybrid, the liminal or in-between states. The central tenet of the Metamorphoses may be superficially paradoxical, but to endorse the belief in an unchanging soul is no more than one would expect from an ancient Greek, even one as unconventional as Ovid. An examination of Ovid's and Carter's stories throws into relief both differences and some unexpected links between ancient and postmodern literary metamorphosis. Metamorphosis has a specifically literary history, although its roots are inseparable from those of the popular forms, and Ovid's Metamorphoses is obvious place to start a discussion of this history.
