Abstract: This book presents a study which reconstructs the experiences of the abandoned heroines of the Heroides, which have been largely ignored by past criticism. The book seeks ways to isolate, characterize, and release the female voice and experience within Ovid's male-authored text. Building on a wide range of ancient as well as modern images and reflections on gender and writing, the book attempts to map the relationship between gendered sensitivities and experience and generic expression and choices. The book uses the insight gained by the boom of intertextual studies in recent Latin scholarship to go a step further and address explicitly the ideologies of intertextual studies. This is a book about readers and reading, just as much as about women and gender, and it is also a study of the intricate and heated negotiations behind the interpretative act.

Keywords: heroine, gender, writing, Latin scholarship, intertextual studies, women