The Art of Love

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 2

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Ships and Chariots

Two symbols that occur frequently throughout The Art of Love are ships and chariots. Ships represent movement, while chariots represent victory; the vehicles are often presented side by side: “art that speeds the boat with oars and sails, / Art drives the chariot, art in love prevails” (Book 1, Lines 3-4). The mixed metaphor describes the skill and artistry required to navigate the complex pathways of love—these routes are as unpredictable as sailing, which uses “oars and sails” depending on weather conditions, and as treacherous as charioteering, which requires a steady hand and nerves of steel.

Sailing imagery is also used to give structure to the poem, guiding readers from one topic to the next. For instance, when the poem is about to continue its advice for men in Book 2, Ovid asks readers to “Here stay the barque” (Book 1, Line 772). This motif represents sticking around for the second book. When Ovid ends the poem, he says he is bringing the “barque to port” (Book 3, Line 748), or the conclusion of The Art of Love.

Chariots meanwhile are also used as symbols of victory. Chariots were an important military vehicle and were thus part of Roman processionals, or parades that celebrate victory. Ovid includes a digression about a processional for Augustus Caesar in Book 1, Stanza 8. This aside allows him to include the kind of praise of Rome’s autocratic dictator that was expected of all authors; based on the fact that Ovid was eventually exiled, it is clear that his attempts to woo Augustus fell flat or were seen as insufficiently authentic.

Since Ovid wrote in Latin, but most contemporary people read him in translation, the terminology revolving around ships and chariots will differ from version to version. Here, for instance, A. D. Melville often translates ships as barques—an old-fashioned and technically correct term that doesn’t really convey Ovid’s colloquial and off-handed diction in the original.

War

Love is also described via imagery and diction pertaining to war, or martial language. Ovid says outright, “Love is a warfare” (Book 2, Line 233) when speaking to his male audience—the implication is that just as war requires the strategic application of resources and on-the-ground tactics to secure a victory, so too does a successful “love’s campaign” (Book 2, Line 236) need a careful and planned out approach.

The metaphor has a darker side as well. A war campaign includes military combat, which often results in casualties and injuries. Similarly, Ovid explains that love frequently inflicts pain on those who pursue it. Men who slog through unrequited attractions and the long process of finding a woman who will return their affection can be just as dispirited as bedraggled and exhausted soldiers traveling to battles. Men can suffer wounds in both types of warfare. Of course, this comparison is somewhat tongue-in-cheek; obviously being maimed or killed in battle is much more serious than having one’s pride hurt by an unresponsive lover. This comic device of using the elevated language of epic poetry to describe a topic with much lower stakes is called the mock heroic—it’s a technique Ovid uses frequently.

Finally, Ovid describes his own work in martial language as well. If love is a war, then what he has made is weapons and armor for fighting well and powerfully. When Ovid transitions from male readers to female ones, he says, “Greeks have I armed ‘gainst Amazon to stand, / Remains to arm Penthesilea’s band” (Book 3, Lines 1-2). In other words, the first two books of The Art of Love have been for the Greek fighting forces—the men—who have thus been “armed” to combat their opponents on the field of romantic struggle. Their opponents are the “Amazon[s]” (Book 3, Line 1) or famed female warriors whose leader Penthesilea even managed to get the better of Hercules. Ovid proposes to now equally arm women so that the battle for love is fought on equal footing.