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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the dream interpreter say Ovid's dream means?

2. How much focus does Ovid put on poetry when he finishes his education?

3. Who does the poet overhear speaking with Corinna in Amores 1:8?

4. In Amores 3:11, Ovid claims, "Your morals turn me off, your body on." Which one does he say is likely to win out?

5. Why does Ovid berate the writing tablet in Amores 1:12?

Short Essay Questions

1. Does Ovid experience success as a statesman or a poet during his lifetime? Explain.

2. How does Ovid embody the dilemma between writing love poems and writing tragedies in Amores Book 3?

3. In Amores 3:11, Ovid grapples with conflicting emotions regarding Corinna. What are they and why?

4. Who dies in Amores 2? Does this character have a special ability?

5. Why does Corinna's hair fall out? What does Ovid recommend as a solution?

6. Explain what happens the time Ovid is impotent.

7. What does Ovid hope to accomplish by telling the story of the river that falls in love with the wandering woman to the stream?

8. What happens to Ovid after his banishment? How long does he live?

9. What is Ovid's opinion of those who expose clandestine love affairs?

10. Explain the incident with Cypassis who is Corinna's lady maid.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

After the Cures For Love, there is a fragment of the text that remains from his poem On Facial Treatment for Ladies. This fragment gives us a glimpse into what makeup and its applications might have been like two thousand years ago in Rome. Further this text with some research on the side and discuss the history and changes of makeup over time.

Part 1. Summarize and explain the information in On Facial Treatment for Ladies and other sources you have used.

Part 2. What would it have been like to use cosmetics as they were then?

Part 3. How have cosmetics changed over time to become how they are today? How is the experience of the user different?

Essay Topic 2

Ovid's erotic poems are written in elegiac couplets. Discuss this choice of meter form.

Part 1. What are the component parts of meter?

Part 2. What is a system of scansion and how is it used?

Part 3. What are elegiac couplets? What problems are there in translating this meter from the Latin?

Essay Topic 3

Ovid is a writer whose poetry is still being read two thousand years after he wrote it and people are still relating to it. Why is this?

Part 1. What is it about Ovid's writing that makes it timeless?

Part 2. What part of Ovid's poetry have you managed to relate to personally?

Part 3. Do you think Ovid's work will continue to be accessible to future generations?

(see the answer keys)

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