Corinna appears as the pseudonymous mistress in Ovid's Amores, embodying sophisticated urban love while also appearing in pastoral contexts; the name may reference the ancient Greek lyric poet Corinna. The character represents intelligent beauty and the complications of desire, her presence in poetry exploring the games, deceptions, and pleasures of love. Corinna's dual association with both urban elegy and pastoral verse demonstrates the flexibility of conventional names in classical and neoclassical poetry.

Corinna appears most famously in Ovid's Amores as the poet's mistress and muse, though her identity remains debated—possibly fictional, possibly pseudonymous. Unlike pastoral beloveds, Corinna inhabits the urban world of Roman elegy with its sophisticated eroticism and social complications. Poets use Corinna when exploring the interplay between biographical reality and poetic fiction, the relationship between lover and muse, and the creation of a beloved through language. The character demonstrates how love poetry constructs its objects, making the beloved both real woman and literary creation, raising questions about reference, representation, and the relationship between poetry and life.