FACULTY
Betty Rose Nagle
- Professor, Department of Classical Studies
Education
- B.A. at University of Pennsylvania, 1970
- M.A. at Indiana University, 1973
- Ph.D. at Indiana University, 1975
Research Interests
- early Imperial Latin poetry
- translation
- classical myth in popular culture
Contact Information
| nagle@indiana.edu |
| Ballantine Hall, Room 552 |
| 855-6651 |
Background
I began studying Latin in high school, on the advice of a guidance counselor who knew I wanted to be a veterinarian and thought that Latin would prove useful for understanding scientific and medical terminology. I entered college intending, after a change of plans, to major in English, but my plans again changed after two mediocre English courses and two remarkable Latin classes I took to satisfy a language requirement. So, you never know. With the exception of my first academic appointment (Smith College, 1975-76), I have spent my entire academic career, including graduate work, at Indiana University, so, like its current President, I am a Hoosier by adoption. For twenty years, I specialized in Ovid, first with a landmark monograph on the poetic letters he wrote from exile on the Black Sea, then with narratological studies of his masterwork, the Metamorphoses, and finally with a translation of his calendar poem, the Fasti. I continued as a translator, turning to the occasional poems of the Flavian Statius; in the works for my upcoming sabbatical project is a translation of Valerius Maximus’ epic Argonautica. More recently I have become interested in the way that classical myth has been translated into popular film and fiction; this interest has borne fruit not only in scholarly papers, but in a new course added to our curriculum in 2007.
Selected Awards
- Phi Beta Kappa, 1970
- Lilly Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship, 1983-84
- National Humanities Center Fellowship, 1984-85
- Distinguished Hoosier, 1986
- Lilly Freshman Learning Project (Indiana University), July 2004
Courses Recently Taught
- Catullus
- Ovid
- Roman Comedy
- Roman Lyric and Elegy
- Classical Mythology
- Classical Myth in Film
Publication Highlights
Books
The Poetics of Exile: Program and Polemic in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto of Ovid. Collection Latomus 170. Brussels, 1980.
Ovid’s Fasti: Roman Holidays, trans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Statius’ Silvae, trans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Articles
"Byblis and Myrrha: Two Incest Narratives in Ovid's Metamorphoses," Classical Journal 78.4 (April-May 1983) 301-315.
"Amor, Ira, and Sexual Identity in Ovid's Metamorphoses,” Classical Antiquity 3.2 (October 1984) 236-255.
"Ovid: A Poet Between Two Novelists (Vintila Horia, God was Born in Exile, and David Malouf, An Imaginary Life)," Helios 12.1 (Spring 1985) 65-73.
"Ovid, 'Facile' or 'Formulaic'? (A Metrical Mannerism and Its Implications),” Quaderni Urbinati n.s. 25.1 (1987) 73-90.
"A Trio of Love Triangles in Ovid's Metamorphoses,” Arethusa 21.1 (Spring 1988) 75-98.
"Erotic Pursuit and Narrative Seduction in Ovid's Metamorphoses," Ramus 17 (1988) 32-51.
"Two Miniature Carmina Perpetua in Ovid's Metamorphoses,” Grazer Beiträge 15 (1988) 99-125.
