Bloomsbury Ovid on Cosmetics: Medicamina Faciei Femineae and Related Texts

Review "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 Product Description 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. About the Author 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 (Bloomsbury 2005), author of Sappho (2006) and Boudicca (2012), both in Bloomsbury's Ancients in Action series, co-editor (with Harold Tarrant) of Alcibiades and the Socratic Lover-Educator (Bloomsbury 2012) and author of Ovid on Cosmetics (Bloomsbury 2015).