I see what you mean now. Well, like I tried to explain in the first post of this thread, in the beginning - in the enthusiasm of finding new leads - I did overly focus on Ovid as an author.
But it is like you say, these authors have remained popular, especially in renaissance circles. I believe we are looking at the kind of material that was hugely popular in the Hellenistic period, later with the Romans, and all the way through the middle ages - and even still today in schools.
Since at the moment I don't know which specific version or adaptation of this material we are dealing with, my options are limited when it comes to primary texts. Hence, I consult those authors whose works have been best preserved throughout the centuries. Even from a strictly medieval viewpoint, these primary texts remain important since versions of them were copied by the dozens.
I might also add, before moving on to concrete examples, that being an author did not always mean what it means today. People like Ovid did add their own creativity, but they still relied heavily on the body of myths and other material that existed in their time, and the Greeks before them. We know that Ovid used a whole bunch of sources, though most of those are unknown or have been lost. For example, he made extensive use of a collection of myths about people changing into birds.
So what I'm saying is that this comes from the fertile pool of material that existed in antiquity and subsequent centuries. Ovid is just one exceptionally prominent witness of those myths.
But it is like you say, these authors have remained popular, especially in renaissance circles. I believe we are looking at the kind of material that was hugely popular in the Hellenistic period, later with the Romans, and all the way through the middle ages - and even still today in schools.
Since at the moment I don't know which specific version or adaptation of this material we are dealing with, my options are limited when it comes to primary texts. Hence, I consult those authors whose works have been best preserved throughout the centuries. Even from a strictly medieval viewpoint, these primary texts remain important since versions of them were copied by the dozens.
I might also add, before moving on to concrete examples, that being an author did not always mean what it means today. People like Ovid did add their own creativity, but they still relied heavily on the body of myths and other material that existed in their time, and the Greeks before them. We know that Ovid used a whole bunch of sources, though most of those are unknown or have been lost. For example, he made extensive use of a collection of myths about people changing into birds.
So what I'm saying is that this comes from the fertile pool of material that existed in antiquity and subsequent centuries. Ovid is just one exceptionally prominent witness of those myths.