This study seeks to renew interest in the poetically constructed landscapes of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Far from existing as mere background to the epic, close investigation and analysis reveals the reflective relationship and mutually exerted force between landscape and narrative. Detailed readings show how the landscapes are created in order to reveal Ovid’s poetic programme, especially as concerns the intersection of genre; landscape descriptions are read as interpretive strategies for understanding the crossing of genres that comprise Ovid’s hyper-Alexandrian epic. I argue for this interest as indicated to the reader by three points of departure made by the poet that show up against the background of his interconnected patterning of narrations. These are choices demanding exegesis beyond mere recognition, and are designed to reveal a purposeful agenda that focuses attention upon the descriptions of the natural world. The first chapter explores the construction of Thessalian Tempe in Book 1, made prominent by Ovid’s mythological placement of Daphne as a Thessalian nymph. Tempe represents a landscape consequentially shaped by the narrative of Apollo and Daphne, memorialising topographically the intersection of the ‘high’ and ‘low’ genres of epic and elegy exemplified in their interaction. This narrative influence over the landscape is explored in this programmatic tale, and Tempe’s metapoetic construction is argued for using Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos as a poetic model, focusing on the figure of the Peneus common to both texts. The second chapter focuses on Helicon in Book 5, and examines the finely-drawn relationship between the contest songs and Helicon’s position as the contest prize across the complex layers of narrative space, demonstrating how the inspiratory springs of Helicon provide the narrative motivation for the contest songs and tracing the generic topography of Calliope’s song. The third chapter offers a new interpretation of Orpheus’ grove as an atmospheric doublet of the Underworld, examined through the patterning of meaning imposed by the dual meaning of umbra, and identifies Ovid’s transformation of a literary topos.

Begegnungen mit der Unterwelt stellen ein konstitutives Element antiker, vor allem epischer Poesie dar. Besonderer Popularität erfreute sich das Thema in der neronisch-flavischen Epik, die an die von Homer begründete und von Vergil weitergeführte Tradition anknüpfte, diese jedoch in innovativer Weise umgestaltete. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird gezeigt, dass die Nekyiai der kaiserzeitlichen Dichter, wiewohl in der Forschung oft negativ beurteilt, originelle Variationen des für das Genre zentralen Motivkomplexes darstellen und eine wichtige Etappe in der Geschichte des Topos bilden. Insbesondere wird mit Hilfe eines stärker die dynamische Wechselwirkung zwischen Prä- und Posttext berücksichtigenden sowie neben der diachronen auch die synchrone Ebene von Sinnkonstitution einbeziehenden Interpretationsansatzes die vielschichtige intertextuelle Dimension der neronisch-flavischen Unterweltsszenen erhellt, die sich durch den kontaminierenden Rekurs auf eine Reihe literarischer Vorlagen ergibt. Es wird dargelegt, dass die Jenseitsepisoden der nachaugusteischen Epiker eine wichtige poetologische Bedeutung haben, indem sie den bevorzugten Ort für die literarische Selbstpositionierung und -legitimierung des Verfassers bilden. Darüber hinaus wird der Einfluss der veränderten politischen, sozialen, ideologischen und ästhetischen Bedingungen im 1. Jahrhundert n. Chr. auf die Neukonzeption der Unterwelt im neronisch-flavischen Epos untersucht. / Encounters with the underworld are a constitutive element of ancient, especially epic poetry. The topic was particularly popular among Neronian and Flavian poets who closely engage the literary tradition established by Homer and further developed by Vergil, yet refashion it in an innovative way. In this thesis, I shall argue that the necyia scenes of the imperial poets, although often criticized by scholars, are original variations of the motif, which is of essential significance for the genre, and mark an important stage in the history of the theme. Using an interpretive approach which focuses more strongly on the dynamic interaction between hypo- and hypertext and also considers the synchronic level of creating meaning in addition to the diachronic one, I shall demonstrate in particular the complex intertextual dimension of the Neronian-Flavian underworld scenes, which is based on their combined reference to multiple literary models. In addition, I will show that the necyia episodes of the post-Augustan epicists have an important poetological meaning, providing a privileged venue for the author to position himself within the literary tradition and to legitimize his own work. Finally, I will examine the impact of the political, social, ideological, and aesthetic changes in the first century CE on the shift in representation of the underworld in Neronian-Flavian epic.