Commento a Ov. Pont. 4, 8 e 4, 9

The fourth book of the Pontica of Ovid have a fundamental importance within the entire collection, for the issues addressed and the peculiarities of the reflections in which the poet arrives in this part of the collection. The commentary of Helzle (1989) is the last commentary, in origin a doctoral thesis. It comments on the first seven of the fourth book of elegies and the sixteenth, leaving the elegy, the eighth which , rightly, by Galasso has been called “proemio al mezzo”, because a condensate on the role and activities of the poet, and the ninth , perfectly harmonized with the previous elegy as full exemplification of poetry celebrating only theorized in previous composition and perfect introduction of the themes of the second part of the collection. The poet , who was forced away from Rome , does not intend to isolate oneself in the world, but try every possible way, conceiving a poem that meets the needs of the recipient to whom it is addressed. What I can guarantee is the eternal glory that comes from memory in his poetry. The exile outcast reorganizes , far from Rome, his previous reality , through poetry and his mind, substitute vision, which allows him, he hopes, to participate as it can to the important events of Roman public life, as the beginning consulate of Grecino . The new way of poetry is dictated by the particular situation of the exile that needs support. The figure of the princeps and the environment of the court, members of the political elite become an intrusive presence, personal dedications reappear and transform the intimacy of friendship in deference patronage . Sometimes have been allegations of flattery addressed to Ovid , Ovid has sometimes been called the first of the poets courtiers (Grimal , 1968). The poem conceived in these elegies of Ovid undoubtedly gives the new image of the poet Ovid , who uses ideas and materials for the construction of an innovative poetic project, which shows a poet spectator and participant, the protagonist of the poem as never before, a claimant position social that does not belong to him anymore . The new poem is made up of poems that would find the approval of Augustus, a poem is not so far from Tristia and Pontica, more compatible with the new reality in which the poet is the protagonist and participant, in which lays claim to its own membership, a poetry that can only be the poem occasion. It isn’t found in this new poem a precise and explicit willingness on the part of a recipient, so that is not a client, Ovid is not a cliens. Moreover, the new genre of poetry, the poetry of occasion, find space previously: Ovid is to inform himself in Pont. 1, 2, 129-132 have dialed a epithalamium for the wedding of Paolo Fabio Massimo and in Pont. 1, 7, 29 ff . he had composed on the occasion of the death of the father of Messalino a poem recited at her funeral. Although it does not keep track Ovid held, therefore, activities poet of occasion. The tense relations with the princeps , the pyramidal system of relations and the gradual creation of a language to formulate and flattering cliens-patronus radically change the poetry and the poetry of Ovid homage staff become part of his work. [edited by Author]