Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

Until recently, Ovid's Fasti has not had, curiously, the attention it deserves. Undoubtedly, those who assumed a poem about the calendar had to be dull did not read it with enough attention. But the delightful annotated translation by Peter Wiseman and Anne Wiseman (2011), and now Angeline Chiu's analysis, as witty as it is sophisticated, have revealed a work no less mischievous, destabilizing, and subtly subversive than any other better-known poem in the Ovidian canon. Ovid seizes on the inevitable disagreements and contradictions in the Roman cultural tradition and makes an argument out of indeterminacy. He sets the Muses and gods quarreling with one another over origins. To the reader he says, ultimately, "ipse leges" ("choose for yourself"): not an encouraging attitude in the Rome of Augustus, with its strong propaganda of moral improvement. This reviewer has rarely read a more deftly charming scholarly monograph, and, surprisingly, the endless catalogue of Ovidian women, from Vestal Virgins to saucy nymphs, outshines anything in Ovid's better-known Art of Love. Cherchez la femme indeed. Warmly suggested for both college and general readership.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General collections, and upper-division undergraduates and above.

Hansen (emer., Indiana Univ., Bloomington) is arguably the most eminent folklorist currently active in the realm of classical scholarship. This long-awaited, astonishingly comprehensive volume represents the culmination of his scholarly explorations over a period of more than 50 years. It is a work of remarkable depth and scope, the consummate achievement of decades of research and collecting, analyzing, and classifying the literary memorializations of Greek and Roman oral narrative fiction. According to Hansen, the compendium of narratives assembled (369 in number) represents "the most extensive compilation of ancient popular tales ever made." All the tales are lucidly translated by Hansen himself, and he brackets the selections with the editorial armature of historically informed scholarship. Especially noteworthy is his valuable introduction, in which he provides a unique taxonomic dissection of the vast spectrum of this variegated fictional genre. He makes a distinction between credence- and non-credence narratives, as well as legends, myths, and folk tales, collaterally presenting a system of categorization that includes, among others, aretalogy, anecdotes, novelle, fables, jokes, and fairy tales. This aesthetically pleasing and most welcome publication not only provides an excellent introduction to the multidimensional world of Greek and Roman storytelling, but also constitutes a delightful repository of literary entertainment.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.