Among those of other disciplines, scholars of classical reception, too, took the occasion of the bimillennial of the poet's death (give or take, due to the imprecision inherent in stating a time of death e silentio) to invoke another Aetas Ovidiana, specialising either in region (e.g. P. Russell, Reading Ovid in Medieval Wales [2017]) or in era, covering anything from late antiquity to the early modern period and beyond (e.g. I. Fielding, Transformations of Ovid in Late Antiquity [2017]; P. Mack and J. North [edd.], The Afterlife of Ovid [2015]; K. Enenkel and J. de Jong [edd.], Re-Inventing Ovid's Metamorphoses [2021]), while at the same time the Augustan poet has become so synonymous with the postmodern paradigm in scholarship and arts that V. Rimell has stated by inference that, as long as there is literary theory, there will be Ovid and vice versa (see V. Rimell, IJCT 26 [2019]). This comes at a time when even popular culture is getting more alert to any notions of rape culture in classical literature in the wake of the ‘Me Too’ movement, as is evident in the popular press, but also by an increased production of pertinent theses on (under-)graduate level. This shift has come about so rapidly that less than a decade ago in a review of a volume about Teaching Ovid the absence of any assessment of the poet's purported ineptitudes regarding gender relations was not noticed, let alone reprimanded by the reviewer (see L. Oakley-Brown, CR 62 [2012]).

These seem to be the perfect surroundings for a volume addressing subversion/resistance (Gegen), patriarchy/sexual oppression (Gewalt) and poetology/intersection of literature and society (Schreiben) in the long-term reception of Ovid. Although making no mention of contributions such as those by D. Zuckerberg (Not All Dead White Men [2018]) or H. Morales (Antigone Rising [2020]), Möller's volume at least in spirit appears to aim at a more nuanced scholarly assessment of the issue at hand. This is an achievement in itself, as there has not been much – published – scholarship on the topic in recent years in the German community. Recognising this – as of yet – rather blind spot, it is all the more a pity that, of the original papers held during a Ringvorlesung – an ideal environment for the intended type of broader academic and social conversation –, from which this collection emerged, only slightly more than half found their way into the slim volume. Those that made it there make it a rewarding read for a broad and diverse scholarly audience. An introduction by Möller as the sole editor creates coherence and shows how the papers intersect with a variety of academic discussions – that it often barely touches upon the details of a particular discussion and then moves on to the next is in line with the nature of such an introduction and does not warrant a plea for more depth or breadth of scholarly gaze.

The papers themselves follow a roughly chronological order, N. Holzberg's contribution being the exception in that it rather forms a bracket around the others: by trying to restore the actual semantics of sexual and erotic language in the classical text, he pleads for a more sensible approach to translating Ovid in the twenty-first century. Holzberg's paper bears traces of the apparently sportive talk it originated in and at times gives the impression of a cumulative review of any German translation of Ovid up to Holzberg's own (which he does not spare from criticism or the same rigour of scrutiny, though). He reveals the intertwinement of canonical nineteenth- and twentieth-century translations with the simultaneously hypermasculine and asexual societal ideals of militarised Prussian Germany, palpable in the euphemising of sexual violence and infantilisation of the woman as a sexual subject. Holzberg's paper tells a valuable cautionary tale for the non-Classicist reader always to question which kind of translator's mindset should be depended on and for the Classicist to avoid certain questionable mannerisms engraved into classical philology's often clumsy handling of its more explicit contents.

J. Eming's paper makes the reader wonder whether the volume at times would have benefited from a firmer editorial hand. The contribution, lucid in itself, shows how in the middle-German so-called Narzisslied by the mere remote allusion to Ovidian myth the reader is reminded that desire always carries the notion of destroying and owning and that it also ‘reflects’ rather on the desirer than the desired. A brief look into the valuable index locorum, the thematic hub of the volume generating much of its scholarly coherence wherever the introduction does not, shows that there is not a single reference to Ovid's epic in Eming's paper – falling short of M. Feichtenschlager's paper in, it should be noted, a volume (M. Kern, C. Edwards, C. Huber [edd.], Das Narzisslied Heinrichs von Morungen [2015]) that was not edited by Classicists.

In what is probably the most erudite contribution J. Eickmeyer takes the reader on a tour d'horizon across three centuries of early modern reception of the Heroides in Latin and German imitation that could simultaneously turn out as refutations of Ovid's purported lack of morals. Eickmeyer follows the heroic epistle from Eobanus Hessus’ enormously influential Heroides Christianae to the vernacular, i.e. German, where both a re-eroticisation and subsequent pietist defusing of the newly found erotic can be witnessed. Eickmeyer is equally at home in Neo-Latin and early modern German literature, which makes his valuable contribution more than just an erudite walkthrough, rather a lucid case study in the malleability of the Ovidian pretext that helps the reader calibrate the heuristics for the remaining papers.

The ensuing two papers have a common denominator in that they both derive their readings of Brentano/Arnim and Flaubert, respectively, from the intertext of Ovid's rendering of Arachne. Y. Pauly's piece on C. Brentano and A. von Arnim, the longest in the volume, puts emphasis on Brentano's deliberate blurring of gender boundaries as well as the Ovidian fashioning of his own writing's deliberate non-closure. Pauly should be commended for her repeated reminders that education and scholarship have a certain responsibility and accountability towards each other (pp. 87–9 and 109), even more so when it comes to staples of German school curricula such as gender relations in the face of Romanticism. Rightfully, Pauly insists that the perpetuation of questionable socio-literary paradigms in classrooms and schoolbooks is not something to give an easy pass on and that, conversely, academia should test the validity of its ideas and trends in the educational system.

Pauly might have elaborated further on notions of poetry as a craft, trade and business (p. 104), especially when read in one sitting with the following paper, which delves deeper into the idea that Minerva's brutal assertion of her mastery in the art/craft she invented encapsulates an entire socio-economic paradigm (p. 119): B. Vinken juxtaposes V. Hugo's Notre Dame and G. Flaubert's Madame Bovary, both of which are rich in allusions to the myth of Arachne, as two opposing readings of the Ovidian intertext. While Hugo understands it as the victory of conjugal morality and Marianic piety over a depraved society that condones or even celebrates adultery, Flaubert proposes an inverted understanding: here, the society Minerva stands for is morally corrupt and therefore neither sanctions the polygamists in Flaubert's novel indulging in vice nor protects them from failure and destruction in a chaotic world.

J. Kasper discusses the blurring of gender boundaries in S. Mallarmé's L'après-midi d'un faune on the levels of syntax, word and even single letters, all set against the drowsy half-consciousness of Ovid's Argus, whom Mercury sedates by the repetitiveness and self-plagiarism of the story of Pan and Syrinx. Kasper convincingly traces this disintegration of binarity through multiple layers of adaptation (from the poem to C. Debussy's Prélude to ballet). The almost teleological drift that Kasper insinuates by this seamless sequence of instances of reception might have been mitigated if more context had been provided regarding the extraordinary fascination European avant-gardes in art and literature had with the Pan/Faunus figure in the late nineteenth century (see, for example, the brilliant 2007 exhibition catalogue edited by G. Uerscheln, Der große Pan).

The notable emphasis on Romance languages is furthered by S. Zepp, who also is the only one to contribute examples for the reception of Ovid (or at least Ovidian myth) in the New World. Her four case studies range from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. The point of departure is the play El divino Narciso by the Mexican Hieronymite nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz – a play that, as Zepp strikingly argues, counters Calderón's figurative approach to religious poetry with a more sensualistic one based on Ovidian and Petrarchan imagery. What is more, Sor Juana could also become an intermediary for Ovid as a model in subversive literature in (post-)colonial authoritarian societies (pp. 163–4). The three ensuing case studies each feature a different Ovdian myth (Arachne, Theseus and Ariadne, Diana and Typhon) to explore the topic of the individual in an oppressive political environment. Regarding the structure of the volume, Zepp's paper in particular suggests that cross-referencing the individual contributions might have enhanced overall coherence, given the recurrence of certain myths and/or theoretical issues.

While all the papers are well written and betray a sincere desire to convey their respective points to both a specialised disciplinary and a broader academic audience, some of the fun is spoiled by what sterner micro-editing might have prevented. There are some errors in orthography, both in the text (e.g. p. 30: ‘des Sänger’; p. 63: ‘Socitas Jesu’) and in quotes/references (p. 9: ‘Womanofacture’; p. 119: ‘verum taurum … putare’) or lexis (p. 119: ‘Lydierin’ is an incorrect demonym and there is no such place as ‘Sidonia’) as well as referential errors (p. 8: the honorific ‘Sor’ is used as a given name; p. 140: ‘des Jupiters’ would refer to the planet). There also should have been some streamlining of proper names, especially regarding their Greek vs Latin orthography (why p. 117: ‘Aktaion’, but p. 121: ‘Clytemnestra’?).

Still, despite these minor flaws and the desiderata mentioned in the summaries of the respective chapters, all of them, be their focus wide (like those by Eickmeyer and Zepp) or deep (like those by Vinken or Kasper), are helpful reminders that late twentieth-century Classicists were not the first to register the manifold offers Ovid makes in his poems to reappraise the indefinite nature of gender, the constellations of power and to exploit the attempt to define it generates, and the ramifications of envisioning it in writing. No reader, Classicist or scholar of modern literatures, will regret reading this slim volume: the former, because it helps in adjusting the focus on the esteemed Augustan poet yet another time, the latter because it inspires to look for classical models in more recent texts where they seem to be at their most modern and radical – yet another time: Ovid will keep having his aetates for at least as long as there is literary theory.