Free Will In Ovid's Metamorphose

As set within a larger epic, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and also mirrored in Ars Amatoria, “Icarus’” structure conveys a Roman focus on present experiences, using the flight of Icarus to support the idea of flight as a semblance of free will within the present (Ovid). As the poem takes place within an epic, structurally, it brings attention to that there is a significant amount of history both before and after it. The piece does not rhyme, with the first four lines ending in “perōsus”, “amōre”, “undās”, and “illāc”, conveying how the present time is not controlled by a higher god, leading to the amount of disorder in life that allows one to choose their own destiny (Ovid). While at first glance this seems reasonable, the non–broken meter of dactylic hexameter conveys that while structure in the present may seem absent, there was a plan in store for what is happening in the present. Additionally, the poem takes the physical shape of a block, where each line has approximately the same number of lines as any given other, which …show more content…
Contemporarily, the piece is divided into five sections: the exposition; the rising action; further rising action; the climax; and denouement. Quite like Icarus, the story builds and grows, and when it reaches too high (i.e. the climax), the plot drops, and the story moves into falling action and then its resolution. In regards to its source material, each story in Metamorphoses involves a failed metamorphosis, which creates dramatic irony in that the readers know that Icarus is going to die. Through its stucture, “Icarus” details how flight is merely an illusion of mankind’s ability to govern itself, for mankind focuses too much on their present situation rather than their future