Narrative in Ovid's Amores

How are comics and Latin elegy related? Comics tell their stories by placing individual images in a sequence, and Latin elegy builds narrative through sequence, encouraging readers to connect poems in order to reveal narrativity. Despite this, there has yet to be a definitive methodology that inspires readers to examine the function of this narrative tool. Examining Ovid’s Amores, Swain argues a comics-based methodology can offer us important new insights into the ancient genre of Latin elegy.

This book applies theories such as the gutter (the space that exists between two comics panels), Groensteen’s braiding (the interaction of panels outside of a linear sequence), and the comics page-turn, all to release new readings that reveal the narrative found across the three books of this text. By analysing the way that Ovid creates a complex narrative mosaic in which key characters and motifs repeat across poems, this book explores how story segments are connected into a larger unified narrative.