ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project has spanned several years and has undergone numerous metamorphoses. Along the way, I have benefited from the support, advice, and encouragement of many generous readers, mentors, colleagues, friends, and family. The acknowledgments below are by no means exhaustive, and I owe gratitude to many more than I can name here.

Alison Keith has guided this project from its inception. Without her kindness and expertise, this book would not exist. Alison continues to be my most trusted advisor, mentor, and role model. I am equally grateful to Victoria Wohl, Erik Gunderson, Carole Newlands, and Jarrett Welsh, for their challenging questions and insightful suggestions which informed this work at its earliest stages.

I am deeply grateful to the staff at Cornell University Press and in particular to Bethany Wasik, acquisitions editor, for expertly shepherding this project and especially for her unflagging patience with my questions during the process. I am also indebted to Cornell’s anonymous referees for their attentive reading of my drafts and their generous and valuable comments. Thank you to the production editor, Anne Jones, and the team at Westchester Publishing Services for their skillful copyediting and typesetting; to Scott Garner for his careful indexing; and to Bettina Bergmann for allowing me to use her beautiful image. Finally, I would have been lost without the sharp eye of my department research assistant, Daniel Green, who diligently checked my citations and quotations. All remaining errors and omissions are my own.

I have also benefited from the encouragement and advice of my colleagues at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Thank you all, especially the Classics Department staff and faculty: Justin Arft, Tristan Barnes, Salvador Bartera, Jessica Black, Dylan Bloy, Donna Bodenheimer, Stephen Collins-Elliott, Lorenzo Del Monte, John Friend, Reema Habib, Kelle Knight, Theodora Kopestonsky, Maura Lafferty, Merle Langdon, Robert Sklenar, and Aleydis Van de Moortel. My gratitude to the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee for generously contributing to the publication costs. I also want to thank the members of my Reading Accountability Group in the summer of 2021, Robin Baidya, Dawn Coleman, and Kalynn Schulz, for sharing their writing strategies, keeping me focused, and lifting my spirits. The librarians at John C. Hodges Library must also be acknowledged for their skillful assistance locating so many important resources. My thanks in particular go to the staff in the Interlibrary Services Department and to Molly Royse, the Classics librarian.

I have benefited from the attentive reading, feedback, and advice of many friends and colleagues. In addition to those named above, my sincere thanks go to Robin Barrow, Taylor Coughlan, Chris Craig, Dan Curley, Megan Drinkwater, Laurel Fulkerson, John Han, Sharon James, Anne Langendorfer, Rhonda Lott, Daniel Moore, Jocelyn Moore, Emma Scioli, Alison Sharrock, and Mark Tabone. Over the years and because of the generosity of my home department, I have also had the opportunity of sharing portions of these chapters with accommodating audiences. In particular, I am grateful to the questions and input from those attending my talks at conferences held by the Classical Association of Canada, the Classical Association of the Middle West and South and its Southern Section, the Society for Classical Studies, and the 2015 Augustan Poetry Conference sponsored by the University of São Paulo, as well as invited talks at the University of Kansas and the Haslam Scholars Program at my home institution.

Lastly, I owe my deepest gratitude to the friends and family who continued to cheer, comfort, and motivate me when I needed it the most. Above all, my wife Heather Quinsey, who has accompanied me through this journey from start to finish with unlimited patience and grace. She inspires my work and fills my life with joy every day.

Unless otherwise noted, I use Kenney’s text of the Ars Amatoria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Palmer’s text of the Heroides (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898); Tarrant’s text of the Metamorphoses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Owen’s text of the Tristia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915). All translations are my own.