Ovid Novelized: Metamorphose s Rewritten as a Cautionary Plea for Change in Our Mutual Friend

Abstract: Dickens's Our Mutual Friend is a rewriting of Ovid's Metamorphoses that sets off a dimension of cultural critique that is inherent to the poem. It does so by updating the scope of the source text's representational energies. In this respect, the novel explores a series of Ovidian mutations that partake of a criticism of signs of degeneration within the social landscape. For this, it mobilizes grotesque combinations made of variations on the intertwined figures of Narcissus and Pygmalion. While exposing the dysfunctional elements within the social landscape, the novel deploys yet more Ovidian storylines, motifs, and characters, namely around the Orphic parallel, as signs of regenerative formations promising the prospect of salutary, progressive transformations.