Mental_Floss Presents: Condensed Knowledge by Will Pearson

Author:Will Pearson [Will Pearson, Mangesh Hattikudur, Elizabeth Hunt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061747649
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

Arrest That Writer!:

6 Authors Too Dangerous to Let Loose

Writers agree that pens are mightier than swords. And apparently, tyrants and despots agree that jails are mightier than pens. The following are a few of the writers, poets, and playwrights who ended up behind bars just when their writing started to get interesting.

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_01:: Ovid

In 8 BCE the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, better known to us as Ovid, was banished from Rome by the emperor Augustus. Why? Tradition says the cause was the immorality of his verses. That might be, since Ovid was a very accomplished erotic poet—although his erotic poems are seldom if ever pornographic. But Augustus was a bit of a prude, and (alas for Ovid) the most powerful person in the world. He also had been a friend and supporter of Ovid’s, in the days when Ovid was writing the Metamorphoses and other works based on myth and more “moral” stuff. So, this is the story not just of a political punishment but also of the breakdown of a friendship. In fact, we’re not even sure why he was banished, but banished Ovid was—to the town of Tomi on the Black Sea. Ovid desperately tried to change his ways, tried to produce poetry that was less, er, racy, but in fact, he never saw Rome again.

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