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GLINSKI, Marie Louise von, Simile and Identity in Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016. 1st paperback ed. VI,173p. Paperback. 'Simile is the new metaphor. Such is the argument of this fascinating but flawed book on the figure in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Much of the most interesting research on the poem in the last thirty odd years, notably by Rosati, Barkan, Tissol and Hardie, has explored how Ovid's figured and figurative language (syllepsis, paronomasia, and others, but especially metaphor) is reified in the world of the poem and dynamically explores issues of both identity and expression. Building on this work, Marie Louise von Glinski brings the relatively neglected figure of simile to the fore, arguing that it has a special function in explicitly signalling, dramatizing and exploring the gap between the reality and the comparand, between identity and mimesis. Any quest for the master-key which will solve all the Metamorphoses's hermeneutic puzzles is doomed to at best partial success, since the text's own ludic proteanism wriggles free of unity of interpretation as of all other unities. So it is with von Glinski's similes. The most consistently successful overarching interpretation is that of the relationship between simile and the gods' temporary metamorphoses (ch.2). von Glinski's other chapters, connecting simile with human metamorphosis, generic identity and ideas of fictionality, produce some exquisite interpretations, some which are less persuasive, and others which are convincing in themselves but have only a tenuous link to simile. However, even here von Glinski offers provocative and stimulating ideas about what similes can be and are made to do, which will be of interest and use to students not only of the Metamorphoses but of all texts ancient and modern in which the figure appears. There are some signs of lack of thorough revision which detract a little from the overall effect, but this remains a challenging and insightful book, which will doubtless influence future work on simile in the 'Metamorphoses' and outside it.' (BOB COWAN in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.10.20). € 21.50 (New) ISBN: 9781316623596