This course explores in depth the wittiest of Roman poets, Publius Ovidius Naso. First, we will read three of his Amores, the love poems that made him famous; then, the opening of the Ars Amatoria, the seduction manual that got him in trouble with the emperor Augustus; and finally, selections from the Metamorphoses, the epic masterpiece that has influenced more artists and writers than perhaps any other work of Western literature.