Lecture – Metamorphoses: Ovid’s masterpiece in a new Norwegian language

Nordland Academy of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with Museum Nord, welcomes you to a literature lecture out of the ordinary at Melbo Manor, with Professor Thea Selliaas Thorsen.

Few works in world literature have had a greater influence on our culture than Ovid’s Metamorphoses (c. 8 e.Kr.). For more than two thousand years, the stories of Daphne, Narcissus, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion and a wide range of other figures have shaped Western literature, visual arts, music and thought.

In 2024, the first complete translation of the work into Norwegian was published, by Thea Selliaas Thorsen, who is a professor of classics at NTNU. For her work, she has won the Norwegian Critics’ Award. In this lecture, she talks about the work of rewriting Ovid’s masterpiece: about linguistic challenges, poetic choices and what it means to bring an ancient masterpiece into a modern Norwegian language. This is an introduction to one of the most influential works of antiquity – and a unique opportunity to get close to both the Roman poet Ovid and the art of translation itself.

Photo of Thea Seeliaas Thorsen: Thor Nielsen / NTNU
Illustration of Ovid is in the public domain.