Ars Amatoria - Legacy

Legacy

The Ars amatoria created considerable interest at the time of its publication. On a lesser scale, Martial's epigrams take a similar context of advising readers on love. Modern literature has been continually influenced by the Ars Amatoria, which has presented additional information on the relationship between Ovid's poem and more current writings. The Ars Amatoria was included in the syllabuses of mediaeval schools from the second half of the 11th cent., and its influence on 12th and 13th cent. European literature was so great that the German mediaevalist and palaeographer Ludwig Traube dubbed the entire age 'aetas Ovidiana' ('the Ovidian epoch'). To this day, it has remained a topic of study in Latin literature classes in high schools and colleges around the world.

As in the years immediately following its publication, the Ars Amatoria has historically been victim of moral outcry. All of Ovid's works were burned by Savonarola in Florence, Italy in 1497; Christopher Marlowe's translation was banned in 1599, and another English translation of the Ars amatoria was seized by U.S. Customs in 1930. Despite the actions against the work, Ars amatoria has remained a topic of study in Latin literature classes in high schools and colleges around the world.

It is possible that Edmond Rostand's fictionalized portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac makes an allusion to the Ars amatoria: the theme of the erotic and seductive power of poetry is highly suggestive of Ovid's poem, and Bergerac's nose, a distinguishing feature invented by Rostand, calls to mind Ovid's cognomen, Naso (from nasus, 'large-nosed').