If Lucretius was Rome's philosophical poet, and Virgil her chronicler of former glories, then Ovid was Rome's poet of decadence, the bad boy, extoller of carnal love, the avant-garde revolutionary of the last days of Glorious Rome. Not much is known for sure about his life beyond some bare facts….

In [An Imaginary Life], David Malouf, following in the foot-steps of Doctorow and Vidal and Meyer, has taken an historical figure and invented the missing part of his story. (p. 36)

[Malouf's novel] is a vehicle for expounding one of Ovid's favorite themes, transformation. Beginning with the poet's early journal of banishment, Malouf shows us the mind of a great wordsmith struck dumb in his surroundings trying to adjust to a new life. When he spots the child for the first time the poet recognizes something of himself in him, speechless, outcast, unacceptable; and in transforming the child to...