Amores

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Amores is Ovid's first completed book, published in 16 BC. Amores was written in the elegiac dystic. The book follows the model of the erotic elegy–perhaps the most common theme of the time–as treated before by Tibullus and Propertius. Like the other poets, the book centres in a romantic affair between the poet and a puella: Corinna.

This Corinna is unlikely to have really lived; it seems she is Ovid's poetical creation, loosely based on a Greek poet of the same name; or generalised motif of female Roman mistresses. 'Amores develops as a sort of "novel", breaking style only a few times (the most famous occasion being the elegy on Tibellus' death). For many this is a sign of weakness, but for others it shows Ovid chose the rhetorical locus communis in order to demonstrate his poetical craft.

General scholarly approach has emphasised its humour and poetical composition which is regarded as excellent.

Though most of this book is rather tongue in cheek, some people didn't take it that way and this could be the reason or part of the reason why Ovid was banished from Rome.

There is an excellent and very famous English translation made by Christopher Marlowe.