Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology

Vanda Zajko is Reader in Classics at the University of Bristol, UK. She is co-editor with Miriam Leonard of Laughing with Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought (2006); with Alexandra Lianeri of Translation and the Classic: Identity as Change in the History of Culture (2008); and with Ellen O'Gorman of Classical Myth and Psychoanalysis: Ancient and Modern Stories of the Self (2013). Helena Hoyle completed her PhD at the University of Bristol in 2016. Her research focused on feminist reader response theory towards Virgil's Aeneid in Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia.

“Of priceless help in working with the volume – a handbook par excellence, as it is targeted also at non-professional readers – is the fact that the dominant ideas of each essay and its place in the collection are carefully explained in the introduction.” -- Journal of Hellenic Studies 139 (2019)

• Notes on Contributors ixIntroduction 1Vanda ZajkoPart I Mythography 131 Greek Mythography 15Robert L. Fowler2 Roman Mythography 29Gregory Hays3 Myth and the Medieval Church 43James G. Clark4 The Renaissance Mythographers 59John Mulryan5 Bulfinch and Graves: Modern Mythography as Literary Reception 75John Talbot6 Myth Collections for Children 87Sheila Murnaghan and Deborah H. Roberts7 Contemporary Mythography: In the Time of Ancient Gods, Warlords, and Kings 105Ika WillisPart II Approaches and Themes 1218 Circean Enchantments and the Transformations of Allegory 123Greta Hawes9 The Comparative Approach 139Sarah Iles Johnston10 Revisionism 153Lillian Doherty11 Alchemical Interpretations of Classical Myths 165Didier Kahn12 Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism: On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India 179Phiroze Vasunia13 The Golden Age 193Andreas T. Zanker14 Matriarchy and Utopia 213Peter DaviesPart III Myth, Creativity, and the Mind 22915 The Half‐Blood Hero: Percy Jackson and Mythmaking in the Twenty-First Century 231Joanna Paul16 Myth as Case Study 243Heather Tolliday17 Mythical Narrative and Self‐Development 257Meg Harris Williams18 Finding Asylum for Virginia Woolf ’s Classical Visions 271Emily PillingerPart IV Iconic Figures and Texts 28519 Orpheus and Eurydice 287Genevieve Liveley20 Narcissus and Echo 299Rosemary Barrow21 Prometheus, Pygmalion, and Helen: Science Fiction and Mythology 311Tony Keen22 Dionysus in Rome 323Fiachra Mac Góráin23 Cupid and Psyche 337Julia Haig Gaisser24 Constructing a Mythic City in the Book of the City of Ladies: A New Space for Women in Late Medieval Culture 353Kathryn McKinley25 Francis Bacon’s Wisdom of the Ancients: Between Two Worlds 367John Channing Briggs26 Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus 379Jeanne Nuechterlein27 Ancient and Modern Re‐sounding: Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria 391George Burrows28 Shelley Prometheus Unbound 407Michael O’Neill29 George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion 419Helen Slaney30 Camus and the Myth of Sisyphus 433Kurt Lampe31 Creative Strategies: Lars von Trier’s Medea 447Mette Hjort32 Regarding the Pain of Others with Marsyas: On Tortures Ancient and Modern 463Lisa SaltzmanIndex 475