Courtney Lum

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the text was much different than the other texts we have read in class pertaining to the flood and creation myths largely due to the satirical tone found in much of the story. For instance the story was written in dactylic hexameter, similar to epics, however Ovid strayed from such form at times making it not quite epic form. Also we see in the beginning of the story a very real, natural creation theory explaining how the world came to be in a very factual tone, unlike Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh myths which claimed gods and mystical heavens were the reason the world came about. However, the main reason for the claim that Ovid was poking fun at the epics and other stories of creation and the flood was because of the way he described the second creation of humans. Instead of retelling the factual, elemental version of creation, Ovid describes an extremely different version of creation, stating humans were created through the throwing of rocks behind gods’ backs. The sudden change from realistic to fantasy can be perceived to be Ovid poking fun at texts such as Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh, and their telling of mystical, fantastical creations of the human world.