Abstract:

The postmodern movement emerged in the second half of the 20th century in art, literature, philosophy and culture in the aftermath of World Wars. The world witnessed the mass destruction and collapse of great empires: the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Ottoman Empire and the German Empire. The myths of scientific progress, rationality, nationalism, truth, knowledge, religion and salvation were busted. Early 20th century Modernistic ideas and concepts were questioned in the wake of the emerging post-modernistic movement. Postmodernism questions the grand narratives, universal truths and permanent identities; exposing the fragile nature of reality, and embracing the little narratives, subjectivity of reality, fragmentation, self-reflexivity, pastiche and intertextuality. Postmodern Ethos challenges the traditional concepts of science, progress, truth, objective reality, religion and reason. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, an 8th-century epic, composed in the Latin language during the reign of Augustus Caesar, reflects postmodern ethos. The epic is distinct from contemporary classical literature and other epics, unlike Virgil’s Aeneid which celebrates the glory of Rome, its heroic ideals, divine lineage of the Caesars and the divine cause behind the foundation of Rome, Metamorphoses reveals fragmentation, suffering, voicelessness, cruelty, suppression and failure of grand narratives, it is a mosaic of Petit recit (little narratives) and over 250 discentric myths. Its heroes are not heroic; rather they are erratic gods and powerless mortals, nothing is permanent in their lives, only change is consistent and permanent, their identities are fluid and fragile. Metamorphoses is a synthesis of several small subplots, events and narratives rather than a chronological grand plot, it relies on intertextuality and allusions heavily, producing a mythological pastiche conversing with the great Greek and Roman masters such as Homer, Virgil, Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides, Callimachus, Nicander, Cattulus and Ennius. It raises the concern of the destruction of nature and the environment, and blurs the differences between nature and humans.

Keywords:

Metamorphosis, transformation, postmodernism, reason, science, rationality, pastiche, grand narratives, incredulity, fragmentation, fluidity, irony, paradox.

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