This paper argues that Ovid’s Metamorphoses radically reimagines epic tradition through its structural and thematic innovations. While superficially a chronological compendium of transformation myths, Metamorphoses subverts expectations via intricate narrative voices, destabilized chronology, and thematic multiplicity. Drawing from textual analysis and historical context, the paper demonstrates how Ovid both participates in and deviates from Augustan literary conventions, utilizing metamorphosis as a formal, thematic, and philosophical principle. Transformation operates not only within the stories Ovid tells—of love, loss, desire, and divine punishment—but also within the poem’s structure and poetics, inviting interpretive metamorphosis from readers. By analyzing Ovid’s narrative architecture, the paper reveals how Metamorphoses simultaneously claims epic continuity (via carmen perpetuum) and challenges unity through digression and temporal disjunctions. Thematically, it explores how the poem destabilizes boundaries between mortals and gods, heroes and victims, love and violence—often portraying divinity as fallible and transformation as a metaphor for existential volatility. The paper contextualizes Ovid within Augustan Rome, suggesting his poetic independence and subtle critique of imperial ideology contribute to the poem’s subversive undercurrents. Finally, the paper traces the poem’s reception, arguing its openness to reinterpretation—its metamorphic quality—is the key to its enduring relevance. Ovid’s masterpiece emerges not merely as a retelling of ancient myths but as a meditation on the impermanence of form, identity, and meaning.