The second chapter concerns the origin of motion in the universe. While Plato assumes a self-moving soul as origin, Aristotle posits an unmoved intellect. Proclus brings these two views together by regarding the unmoved intellect as ultimate source of motion and the self-moving soul as an intermediary entity. I demonstrate that his harmonisation effort goes beyond previous Platonist attempts due to the philosophical reasoning he provides. I also defend Proclus’ assumption of both unmoved intellect and self-moving soul as sources of motion against concerns brought up in scholarship.

The goal of this study was to offer a wide-ranging treatment of Proclus’ engagement with Aristotle and his criticism of Plato by focusing on the concept of motion. Thematically, my results can be summed up in six areas.

(1) My main conclusion is that Proclus does not share the view of an essential agreement between Aristotle and Plato – contrary to what is sometimes assumed in scholarship. This emerges most clearly in Proclus’ discussion of Aristotle’s metaphysical system and specifically Aristotle’s rejection of the One as well as deficient understanding of the intellect’s causality (Chapter 4). Proclus regards Aristotle as a defective imitator and epigone of Plato. Aristotelian and Platonic metaphysics do not agree on the types of principles they recognise. As I argued, Proclus’ interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics is more sensible than Ammonius’ et al. who vainly strive to find the Aristotelian equivalent to the Platonic One. Crucially, this insight has implications for the historiography of late antique philosophy: not all post-Porphyrian Neoplatonists adhere to the harmony-doctrine.

The fourth chapter examines the problem of the causality of the unmoved mover. This issue is central in scholarship on Aristotle and goes back to late antiquity. I argue that here Proclus’ non-harmonist stance towards Aristotle emerges most strongly: not only did Aristotle fail to make the intellect an efficient cause of the cosmos’ being but his metaphysics generally is deficient, since he did not recognise the Platonic One as the highest principle. I contrast Proclus’ view with the position of Ammonius and Simplicius who see a complete agreement between Plato and Aristotle.

In this introduction, I outline Proclus’ relationship with Aristotle and provide an overview of the state of the art. I discuss Proclus’ views on the so-called harmony of Plato and Aristotle and contrast it with the views of other, contemporary Neoplatonists, showing that Proclus stands out as more critical of Aristotle. I show that the concept of motion provides a perfect avenue for understanding how Proclus sees the tension between Plato and Aristotle. Lastly, I explain how Proclus differentiates distinct levels of motion which also structure my discussion in the monograph.

The Epilogue draws together the various threads of the book by evaluating the pseudo-Ovidian De vetula, a thirteenth-century forgery of Ovid which claims to be written by Ovid in exile. The Epilogue asks whether, in the light of this book’s previous chapters, De vetula constitutes an ‘authentically exilic Ovid’. Menmuir shows that Ovidian exile facilitates the forgery of De vetula, underpinning its very existence and authenticating an array of blatantly medieval features as genuinely Ovidian. However, having used Ovid’s exile and his exile poetry as a springboard, the poem subsequently departs from Ovid in exile, framing the Ovid of the last book of the poem as a thirteenth-century scholar and a budding Christian to boot. Each chapter of the book is relevant to this fraudulent Ovidian transformation. De vetula is framed as the first response to both Ovid’s exile and his exile poetry, fictitiously bridging the gap between Ovid’s responses (discussed in Chapter 1) and the scholarly and literary responses covered in Chapters 2 and 3. As a forgery of Ovidian exile, the author ‘becomes the exile’ but pushes the second part of this book to extremes by replacing the genuine Ovid’s exilic poetry and life.

The fourteenth-century poet John Gower was a prodigiously Ovidian author, especially throughout his Latin Vox clamantis and English Confessio amantis. It is in the Vox clamantis, and its first book the Visio Anglie, where Gower fully engaged with Ovid in exile, and where he became the Ovidian exile in the ways theorised in Chapter 4. While Gower did not experience exile or marginalisation in real life, in the Visio he inhabits Ovidian exile to respond to the 1381 Uprising. Menmuir firstly speculates how Gower might have read Ovid’s exile poetry. She also considers different theoretical approaches to Gower’s use of Ovid, including cento. Thereafter, the chapter progresses sequentially through the Visio, charting Gower’s range of approaches to the exilic Ovid. At the opening of the Visio, Gower compresses prevailing themes of the exile poetry. Chapter 16 of the Visio is the height of Gower’s Ovidian exilic inhabitation, where Gower shifts to speaking in a first-person voice. The storm at sea in the Visio is drawn from Ovid in exile. Finally, a voice from Heaven speaks to the Gowerian narrator but is in fact a mouthpiece for Ovid in exile.

The Introduction establishes the primary arguments and scope of the book. It defines ‘Ovidian exile’ in two related ways: firstly, as the poetry written by Ovid in exile, namely the Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto and Ibis; and secondly, as Ovid himself as the figure of the exiled poet. Ovidian exile in these terms had a vast influence across medieval culture, informing teaching, preaching, reading and writing – among a host of activities Menmuir terms ‘responses’ – in the later Middle Ages, offering a mode of voicing exile, marginalisation and poethood itself. After describing the circumstances of Ovid’s exile and the primary concerns of the exile poetry, Menmuir introduces the Ovid, or Ovids, of the Middle Ages, including the common perception of Ovid as the tripartite mythographer, lover and exile. Ovid and his works were deemed ethical, and even Christian, in medieval exegesis: the fact of his exile created a penitential arc which enabled Ovid’s transformation into Ovidius ethicus. Menmuir defines ‘responses and respondents’, where ‘response’ comprises a more active expression of ‘reception’. The book’s scope primarily includes responses between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries and focuses on England, albeit as linked to the continent in several ways.