Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.64356/2233-1387.2026.30.1.25
Metamorphosis between Judgment and Endurance: Biblical Theology and Ovidian Poetics
Drago Župarić
orcid.org/0000-0002-6393-4658
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Seada Brkan
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
This paper analyses the motif of metamorphosis within two distinct semantic and anthropological frameworks: the biblical narrative of Lot’s wife (Gen 19:26) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Drawing on exegetical analysis, comparative narratology, and a theological anthropology of the body, the study argues that biblical metamorphosis does not function as an aesthetic or mythological motif, but rather as an act of judgment that marks a rupture in salvation history and the loss of the subject’s personal dynamism. By contrast, in Ovid’s epic, transformation constitutes a fundamental poetological mechanism through which the death of characters is translated into symbolic endurance in nature and in the text. The comparison of these two discourses highlights the difference between a personalist ontology of the body, characteristic of biblical theology, and the aesthetic-naturalistic understanding of identity in ancient poetics. The paper contributes to the dialogue between classical philology and theological hermeneutics by illuminating distinct models of interpreting the body, death, and permanence.
Keywords
metamorphosis; body; resurrection; Ovid; Book of Genesis; theological anthropology; aesthetic immortality
Hrčak ID:
350489
URI
Publication date:
2.9.2026.
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