Desiring Rome: Male Subjectivity and Reading Ovid's Fasti

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Ovid's Fasti, an unfinished work chronicling Rome's rites and festivals, is analyzed through the lens of gender studies and Lacanian film theory. Richard J. King explores how the incomplete nature of the text reflects Ovid's exile and critiques the male-dominated Roman social order. By emulating the civic act of "calendar presentation," Ovid's poetry reveals the fractured identity of both the exiled poet and the citizenry within an imperial context. King's study highlights how the work's interruptions and explanations of festivals serve as a commentary on social prestige and identity.