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Metamorphosis Vs Ovid Research Paper

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Mankind has always pondered over the question of, “Where’d we come from? How did we come to be? Who or what is responsible for the forming the earth?” Men have always tried to create stories and answers to creation. One of the more popular and classic fiction accounts of creation is presented in Book I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Of course there are stark and crucial differences between Ovid’s creation and the truths of creation told in Genesis, but there are many similarities amongst the differences. Both accounts are well appreciated in their own ways by a variety of people. However, when compared side by side they have very palpable differences. One of which is the purpose of their writers. The purpose behind Ovid’s writing his creation …show more content…

Though both account creation in the same order, light, land, animals, then man, the way they are described are very different. Ovid’s is very metaphorically detailed in his account. Whereas the Bible is straight forward, plain, and simple. In my opinion it’s because Moses didn’t need an illustrious or verbose method to explain the truth. The Bible also presents a time frame by which God created everything, six days to create and the seventh to rest, while Ovid doesn’t present any kind of lapse in time in his account. More evidence that Ovid’s method was more verbose and extensive is how long it takes to explain. It took Ovid seven stanzas and around eighty-two lines to tell his story and it took only thirty-one verses to account for all the truths of …show more content…

Perhaps Ovid used the Biblical truth as a writing template for his own story. Both of these works are well written pieces of poetry that have survived for many years after they were written. Ovid wrote Metamorphosis around 17 A.D. and it still is studied by students and still influential in written and visual works today. Then there’s the Genesis account, which was written by Moses around 1500 B.C. and is still the eternal source of truth to how the earth and life came to be. Both also give the credit of creation to an a supreme being. Line 2 Book I of Metamorphoses says, “Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,” thus obviously crediting creation to the “Gods” and Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Right out crediting creation to the one true God. Therefore, though they credit different deities they both acknowledge that life and everything we know was created and not a spontaneous phenomenon. Both also give very similar descriptions of how the universe was before creation, “A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,” (Book I, 11), and “Now the earth was formless and empty,” (Genesis 1:2), both give a pre-creation image of earth like a blob of playdough ready for sculpting. Another big similarity between the two presents itself in line seventy-eight and seventy-nine, “Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes/Beholds his own hereditary skies.”

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