Ovid on Cosmetics: Medicamina Faciei Femineae and Related Texts

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This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. The Medicamina Faciei Femineae is a didactic elegy which showcases an early example of Ovid's trademark combination of a moralistic, instructive form and trivial subject and meter. Exploring female beauty and cosmetics, with particular emphasis on the concept of cultus', the poem also presents five practical recipes for cosmetic treatments used by Roman women. Covering both didactic parody and pharmacological reality, this deceptively complex poem possesses wit, vivacity and importance. The first full study devoted to this little-researched but multi-faceted poem, Ovid on Cosmetics includes an in-depth introduction which situates the poem within its literary heritage of didactic and elegiac poetry, its place in Ovid's oeuvre and its relevance to social values, personal aesthetics and attitudes to female beauty in Roman society. The Latin text is presented on parallel pages alongside a new literal and quality translation, and all Latin phrases are translated for the non-specialist reader. Detailed commentary notes elucidate the text and individual phrases still further.The volume also contains related passages with translations and commentaries from Ovid's Ars Amatoria 3.101-250, on dress, appearance and make-up, and Amores 1.114, on hair dye and resulting baldness.Ovid on Cosmetics presents and explicates this witty, subversive yet significant poem, as well as contextualises its importance for gender and sexuality studies, women's life in antiquity, eroticism, aesthetics and social attitudes to women and beauty in Ancient Rome.

Reviews

"Marguerite Johnson now presents a classicist's perspective, and her volume will both increase the Medicamina's visibility and help readers approach and appreciate the poem ... Johnson's book is an accessible an well-researched addition to Ovidian studies ... A useful new resource that provides a fresh foundation to studying Ovid not only as cosmopolitan praeceptor amoris, but also praeceptor cultis, with all the humorous undertones, elegant contours, and historical highlights that entails." - Classical Journal

Author Bio

Marguerite Johnson is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia. She is the co-author (with Terry Ryan) of Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook (2005), author of Sappho in this series (2006), and co-editor (with Harold Tarrant) of Alcibiades and the Socratic Lover-Educator, also published by Bristol Classical Press (2012). Terry Ryan is senior researcher for the 21st Century Learning Initiative. After receiving his Masters Degree in political economy in 1994, he worked with educational reformers and students in Poland, and co-authored a book on Polish history, The Shadows of the Past (2000), with former Solidarity leader Wiktor Kulerski. Ryan lives in Virginia, USA, with his wife and baby daughter.