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** spoiler alert ** I read this for class recently, and I have to say I'm somewhat impressed and somewhat confused. What I can't work out is the relationship between (what I found to be) the overtly satirical tone and the carefully crafted series of analogies imparting what seems like literal advice. Either Ovid was poking fun at what he considered an absurd game men and women play to socially justify their sex lives, or he was concerned about something darker and intended to approach it with a bit of levity.

I can appreciate how easy it might be to consider much of this as disgustingly misogynistic, but reading it mindful of the precedents of Greek literature, and the powerful hindsight afforded by medieval works of similar substance, I think The Art of Love represents a clear step forward on a social continuum. Women in Ovid's mind are no longer merely spoils of war taken from hated enemies (though I suspect they certainly haven't ceased to be this either), but they become formidable enemies themselves in the warfare of love and courtship. I grant it's not the most salient aspect of the work, but I believe this is a case where some historical examination makes room for a more charitable reading than first glance would suggest.

Ultimately I'm unable to find any clear difference among the various guides to courtship I've encountered, whether Ovid or Cappellanus or Cosmopolitan magazine. They're all partial and affected and sexist in their own ways. One might cynically conclude that Ovid, like so many others, is merely describing a game whose rules are blithely arbitrary, and that in our own times and own ways we all just play along.