The Ovide Moralisé: The First English Translation

FAIN: RQ-50569-11

Baylor University (Waco, TX 76798-7284)
Sarah-Jane Murray (Project Director: November 2010 to May 2017)

Translation from Old French into English of the Ovide moralisé for publication in two hardcover volumes and one abridged paperback version, and preparation of a supplementary website. (36 months)

Like Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Ovide moralisé (or Moralized Ovid) occupies a strategic place in the intellectual tradition of Western Europe. Composed at the beginning of the fourteenth century in France, the Ovide moralisé presents to readers a complete translation and adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (approx. 12,000 lines) into Old French as well as over 60,000 lines of philosophical and theological commentary. Despite widespread scholarly agreement that the Ovide moralisé influenced and shaped the reception of Ovidian myth by such notable literary figures as Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Machaut, Gower, and even Shakespeare, no modern translation of the Ovide moralisé has ever been undertaken and the treasures it contains remain inaccessible to scholars and popular readers unfamiliar with the obscure dialects of Old French. Our project will make this seminal work available to a broad audience in the humanities by producing the first English translation of the Ovide moralisé.