The animal, which writes - the myth of the nymph Io in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Abstract

The ratio of human to an animal is one of the most important relationships between nature and culture. The study of this issue can bring a new look on the body, especially the fact that today in the era of already developed animal studies. Ovid’s Metamorphoses were treated as text-pattern, which makes the transformation – the process of incorporation into an animal. The article is about the interpretation of the myth of the transfiguration mistress of Zeus nymph Io into a heifer and her attempts to communicate with the world of people using the letters. The myth of Io can thus be regarded as a story initialized to the creation of writing (the save characters), and the same placing as the animal in the center of the story – as the beginning of a discussion on the relationship occurring between what exists (nature) and what is produced (culture).