How to Get Over a Breakup: An Ancient Guide to Moving On (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)

Ovid

Jun 2024 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by BJ Harrison

About this audiobook

Breakups are the worst. On one scale devised by psychiatrists, only a spouse's death was ranked as more stressful than a marital split. Is there any treatment for a breakup? The ancient Roman poet Ovid thought so. Having become famous for teaching the art of seduction in The Art of Love, he then wrote Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris), which presents thirty-eight frank and witty strategies for coping with unrequited love, falling out of love, ending a relationship, and healing a broken heart. How to Get Over a Breakup presents an unabashedly modern prose translation of Ovid's lighthearted and provocative work, complete with a lively introduction. Ovid's advice-which he illustrates with ingenious interpretations of classical mythology-ranges from the practical, psychologically astute, and profound to the ironic, deliberately offensive, and bizarre. Some advice is conventional-such as staying busy, not spending time alone, and avoiding places associated with an ex. Some is off-color, such as having sex until you're sick of it. And some is simply and delightfully weird-such as becoming a lawyer and not eating arugula. Whether his advice is good or bad, entertaining or outrageous, How to Get Over a Breakup reveals an Ovid who sounds startlingly modern.

About the author

Publius Ovidius Naso, a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, Ovid was generally considered the greatest master of the elegiac couplet.

Since iTunes named his as one of the top podcasts of 2007, BJ Harrison has continued to wow audiences. With more than 750 audiobooks to his credit, BJ has an astounding array of character voices, dialects, and accents at his fingertips, coupled with an impressive depth of interpretation.

Michael Fontaine is professor of classics at Cornell University. His books include How to Grieve, How to Tell a Joke, How to Drink, Funny Words in Plautine Comedy, and The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy.