Björk's offering is fundamentally her dissertation exploring Heroides 1–15 (i.e. the single letters) and their relationship with the ethopoeia, the school exercise that requires students to impersonate a historical or fictional figure and so speak in someone else's character. Björk argues that Ovid's single Heroides are not only influenced by this form, but they should be read as ethopoeiae in their own right.
The book falls into six chapters, of which four serve as prologue: (1) an introduction to the Heroides; (2) an exposition of the ethopoeia in education; (3) ethopoeia in ancient literature; and (4) ethopoeia in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The last two chapters focus on the Heroides: ch. 5 on formal aspects of the ethopoeia, ‘how the concept, structure, motifs and loci of the ethopoeia are visible in the Heroides’ (15). The final chapter consists of close readings of selected Heroides ‘focusing on the characterization of the writing women’ (15).
A dissertation is not the same as a monograph per se, and it would be unjust to review the one as if it were the other. Nevertheless, the pursuit of knowledge through research and analysis and the lucid presentation thereof are the essential purpose of both. In that vein, Björk's dissertation work is both a dutiful if occasionally flawed demonstration of her academic bona fides and also an earnest engagement with some of Ovid's Heroides.
The book's organisation seems heavy on background and light on actual Heroides analysis. Out of six chapters, only the last two are specific to it. This is not to say that the preceding chapters are superfluous: ch. 1 offers some necessary context to these poems and ch. 2 carefully situates the ethopoeia as part of the progymnasmata, assignments given to students of rhetoric. A crucial part is exploring Ovid's own attested experience of rhetorical training. Equally important is the reminder that rhetoric, oratory and poetry are not sealed off from each other and that these genres are dynamic and flexible, even permeable and porous; it behoves us to study their interrelationships.
Chs 3–4, however, are more of a mixed bag. Ch. 3 samples ethopoeiae in ancient literature, with a heavy emphasis on Greek tragedy. When Björk asserts ‘I have found that ethopoeiae existed in Greek tragedy’ (116), one wonders whether the term has become too conflated with theatre's dramatic monologue for which the actors are naturally in character. Ch. 4 collects ethopoeiae in the Metamorphoses, and while the selection is interesting, I fail to see how this immediately affects the analysis of the Heroides. Ovid composed the Metamorphoses some two decades after the Heroides, so that epic cannot be a precursor; if the real conversation is about how Ovid treated ethopoeia afterwards, such a discussion should probably follow the analysis of those Heroides.
Ch. 5 focuses on formal aspects of ethopoeia in the single Heroides. This is promising, though Björk makes sometimes bemusing, even quixotic choices of what to gloss over and what to dive into. For instance, in her discussion of the tria tempora motif of the ethopoeia, Björk chooses two Heroides to examine, one that adheres to pattern (Canace) and one that does not (Hypsipyle). Attempting to follow Ovidian use of a fundamental motif by examining only two out of a total of fifteen single Heroides seems a bit superficial.
This continues in ch. 6 on Ovid's ethopoetic impersonations. Björk proceeds with group comparisons of Heroides featuring similar circumstances. She chooses, rather arbitrarily, women socially inferior to their partners (Briseis, Oenone, Medea), banished daughters (Canace, Hypermestra) and women who fall in love with visiting sailors (Phyllis, Hypsipyle, Dido). The last group is conspicuously missing Ariadne, whom Björk leaves out ‘for reasons of delimitation’ (247). I find this omission baffling, given Catullus 64 as a predecessor. The choice of groups is also debatable, especially as Björk mentions other possible groupings that she does not pursue. In the end, her close readings cover half the single Heroides, which again seems a little shallow given the argument that all the single Heroides should be read ‘as ethopoeiae and not as epistles’ (243). Over-selection can look like cherry-picking.
I must note the wholesale exclusion of the double Heroides (letters 16–21). While they differ from the single letters because they are correspondence between lovers, they are Heroides nevertheless and certainly involve characterisation. Björk even states: ‘Although the double letters will not be explored further here, their deviation from the ethopoetic idea or ideal cannot be ignored. The fact that there are replies is a reason to regard them as something else other than ethopoeiae …’ (191). Yet this is a compelling reason to include them, not leave them out: the fact that they would complicate the discussion would make for a much more nuanced and interesting consideration of what Ovid does with ethopoeia (and other rhetorical elements) in the Heroides as a whole.
Overall, however, Björk's highlighting of the ethopoeia does add to the ongoing scholarship on these poems. She sums up her contribution well: ‘With his Heroides, Ovid shows that elegy, like the letter or the dramatic monologue, is a fine medium for the ethopoeia, self-centered and emotional as it is. Ovid takes the genre of elegy in an unconventional and new direction’ (333).
