Список литературы

2408-932X

Research Result. Social Studies and Humanities

2408-932X

10.18413/2408-932X-2025-11-3-0-4

3931

RESEARCHES

<strong>The Motif of Human Transformation into an Animal<br /> in Medieval Commentaries on Ovid's “Metamorphoses”</strong>

Kislin

Konstantin B.

Kislin

Konstantin B.

kislin_k_rel@mail.ru

Saint Petersburg State Agrarian University

2025

11300

The article examines the motif of transformation from human to animal in medieval commentaries on Ovid's «Metamorphoses». The relevance of this study is due to an interest in the representation of animal images in European Medieval culture and the need for a deeper understanding of mythographic tradition, which forms an important part of the overall reception of antiquity during the Middle Ages. The novelty of the approach lies in analyzing those parts of commentary that contain elements of bestialization within stories drawn from ancient mythology. The aim of the research is to identify specific features of moral reinterpretation applied by mythographers to bestiary-like characters. To achieve this goal, we have analyzed commentaries dealing with such well-known myths as the transformation of Ulysses' companions into pigs, Lycaon into a wolf, Io into a heifer, Callisto into a bear, among others. The conclusion is drawn that medieval commentators of “Metamorphoses” associated the theme of transformation into animals both with distortion of God's image resulting from sinning and with the moral degradation of characters leading ultimately to loss of their humanity.

medieval reception of ancient mythologymythographic traditionPetrus Berchorius“The Moralized Ovid”bestializationmetamorphosismoralization

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