Ovid’s Ibis: Times and Spaces of Exile Writing

Abstract

The elegiac invective Ibis, dedicated to the homonymous enemy of the Ovidian enunciator and written from the poet's exile, unfolds its verses at the same time as it reflects on its own generic status. This reflection seems to be linked to three times and spaces of writing that propose different types of literature: the writing of the present poem, carried out in Tomi; the writing before the exile, cultivated in Rome; and the writing reserved for the future, also planned in exile and promising for iambics. We will review these three instances in order to determine their metaliterary implications.