
K. Sara Myers
Office Address: Cocke Hall B005
Professor of Classics. She is the author of Ovid's Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses (Michigan, 1994) a commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses 14 (Cambridge, 2009), and articles on Ovid, Roman Elegy, Roman gardens, and Statius. Her current research interests include ancient garden literature, gender, and the poetics of commencement.
Research Interests
My research interests center on Latin literature and its contexts. I am currently working on representations of gardens in Latin literature and on poetics of epic commencement. I have ongoing interests in Ovid, Imperial Latin epic, and in representations of women in ancient literature.
Selected Publications
Books
- Ovid's Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses, The University of Michigan Press, 1994.
- Vertis in usum: Studies in honor of E. Courtney, ed. J. Miller, C. Damon, K. S. Myers, Munich 2002.
- Ovid Metamorphoses 14. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge. 2009.
- Ancient Roman Literary Gardens: Gender, Genre, and Geopoetics. Oxford University Press. 2024.
Articles
- “Ovid at the End of the World: The Exilic Black Sea Region”
- “Re-envisioning the Black Sea.” (forthcoming New Area Studies)
- “Wool-Working in Roman Love Elegy: Tibullus, Propertius, and Sulpicia 3.16” For Oxford Volume on Sulpicia (ed. Celotto). Submitted/Accepted.
- “Columella’s Horticultural Poem: De Re Rustica 10” Chapter for Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Didactic Poetry.
- “Botanical Imperialism and Metamorphic Biodiversity: Livia and Ovid,” In Universal Gardens: Biodiversity Imagined, Sztuka I Dokumentacja/ Art and Documentation 26 (2022) : 69-72.
- “Ovid against the Elements” in Ovidius Philosophus: Philosophy in Ovid and Ovid as a Philosopher, ed. K. Volk and G. Williams, 251-66. Oxford University Press. 2022.
- “New Directions in Ovidian Scholarship,” Helios 48 (2021) 5-20.
- “Catullus: Gender and Sexuality,” in The Cambridge Companion to Catullus, ed. I. M. Le M. Du Quesnay, A. J. Woodman, 70-88. Cambridge, 2021.
- “The Culex’s Metapoetic Funerary Garden,” Classical Quarterly 70 (2021) 749-55.
- “Ovid.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Ed. Ruth Scodel. New York: Oxford University Press. Published February 2021.
- “Divine Journeys: Geographical Catalogues in Ovid Fasti 4” Classical Journal 115 (2020) 397-423.
- “Pulpy fiction: Vergilian Reception and Genre in Columella De Re Rustica 10,” in Reflections and New Perspectives on Vergil’s Georgics, ed. Xinyue, G. and N. Freer, 129-37. Bloomsbury, 2019.
- “Representations of Gardens in Roman Literature,” in Gardens of the Roman Empire, eds. W. F. Jashemski, M. Gleason, K. Hartswick, A. Malek, 258-77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
- Gardens of Pliny, Statius, Martial, Ovid, Varro, Cicero entries in Gardens of the Roman Empire, Vol. 2. Cambridge, 2018
- “ambiguus vultus: Horatian echoes in Statius’ Achilleid,” Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 75 (2015) 179-88.
- “Statius on Poetic Invocation and Inspiration,” in Brill's Companion to Statius, edited by W.J. Dominik, C. E. Newlands, K. Gervais, 31-53. 2015.
- “Ovid, Epistulae Ex Ponto 4.8, Germanicus, and the Fasti” Classical Quarterly 64 (2014) 725-34.
- “Ovid’s Reception of Ovid in the Exile Poetry,” A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid, eds. C. Newlands and J. Miller, 8-21. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.
- “Catullan Contexts in Ovid's Metamorphoses,” in Catullus: Poems, Books, Readers, edited by I. Du Quesnay and A. Woodman, 239-54. Cambridge, 2012.
- “Ovid Bibliography” Oxford Bibliographies Online. 2010.
- “Introduction.” Ovid, The Metamorphoses. Translated by Horace Gregory. Signet Classics. 2009.
- Entries on Tibullus, Elegiac, and Iambic Poetry for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford, 2009.
- “Imperial Poetry” in The Blackwell Companion to the Roman Empire, ed. D. Potter., 439-52. Blackwell, 2006.
- “Italian Myth in Metamorphoses 14: themes and patterns,” Hermathena 177-78 (2004-2005) 91-112.
- “Docta otia: Garden ownership and configurations of leisure in Statius and Pliny the Younger,” Arethusa 38 (2005) 103-29.
- “Psittacus Redux: Imitation and Literary Polemic in Statius Silvae 2.4,” in Vertis in usum: Studies in honor of E. Courtney, ed. J. Miller, C. Damon, K. S. Myers (Munich 2002) 189-199.
- “Miranda fides: Poet and Patrons in Paradoxographical Landscapes in Statius’ Silvae" Materiali e Discussioni 44 (2000) 103-38.
- “The Metamorphosis of a Poet: Recent Work on Ovid,” JRS 89 (1999) 190-204.
- “The Poet and the Procuress: The Lena in Latin Love Elegy,” JRS 86 (1996): 1-21.
- “Ultimus Ardor: Pomona and Vertumnus in Ovid's Met. 14.623-771.” Classical Journal 89 (1994): 225-50.
- “The Lizard and the Owl: An Etymological Pair in Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5,” AJP 113 (1992): 63-68.
- “Ovid Amores 2.6 : Programmatics and the Parrot," Echos du Monde Classique/Classical Views, 34, n.s.9 (1990): 367-74.
Personal
I received my AB from Oberlin College and my PhD from Stanford University. I taught at Princeton and at the University of Michigan before coming to UVA in 1997. I have two sons, both of whom attended UVA.