This major study of Ovid's poetry is the first significant analysis of the importance of illusion and the conjuring presence throughout his work. Modern theoretical approaches examine the topic from the points of view of poetics and rhetoric, aesthetics, the psychology of desire, philosophy, religion, and politics. There are also case studies of the reception of Ovid's poetics of illusion in Renaissance and modern literature and art. The book will interest those studying Latin and later European literature. Foreign language sections are accompanied by English translations.