An Imaginary Life Themes

David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life gives a fictional account of the Roman poet Ovid—a historical figure notorious for being the Roman Empire’s most irreverent public personality—after he is exiled for his indecent poems. Though most of the details of the real-life Ovid’s exile are lost to history, Malouf imagines what may have become of the infamous, hedonistic poet in his last years. In Malouf’s story, Ovid is exiled to the tiny village of Tomis…

When the Roman Emperor Augustus exiles the poet Ovid to a small remote village called Tomis, Ovid must learn to speak an entirely new language. Although Ovid initially finds the villagers to be barbaric and strange, as he slowly absorbs their language he begins to understand how they see the world, which contrasts drastically with his own worldview. After learning the village language, Ovid again learns a new “language” when he meets the Child…

Although the Roman Ovid is known as a sophisticated, “metropolitan poet,” he spends his childhood on a rural farm, living a simple, happy life surrounded by nature. After his irreverent poems earn the ire of the Roman emperor, the government exiles Ovid to the remote village of Tomis, which resembles his childhood home in that it is simple, quiet, and surrounded by nature. As the years in exile pass, Ovid recalls his early years…