page_title: Greek mythology in popular culture
section_title: In literature
hierarchical_section_title: Greek mythology in popular culture / In literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Posthumous Portrait of Shelley Writing Prometheus Unbound, oil on canvas. Keats-Shelley Memorial House, Rome, Italy.
context_page_description: Elements of Greek mythology appear many times in culture, including pop culture. The Greek myths spread beyond the Hellenistic world when adopted into the culture of ancient Rome, and Western cultural movements have frequently incorporated them ever since, particularly since the Renaissance. Mythological elements feature in Renaissance art and in English poems, as well as in film and in other literature, and in songs and commercials. Along with the Bible and the classics-saturated works of Shakespeare, the myths of Greece and Rome have been the major "touchstone" in Western culture for the past 500 years.
  Elements appropriated or incorporated include the gods of varying stature, humans, demigods, titans, giants, monsters, nymphs, and famed locations. Their use can range from a brief allusion to the use of an actual Greek character as a character in a work. Some types of creatures—such as centaurs and nymphs—are used as a generic type rather than individuated characters out of myth.
context_section_description: Some stories in the Arabian Nights, such as the story of Sinbad blinding a giant, are thought to have been inspired by Greek myths.
  In 1816, Percy Shelley had been working on a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound for Lord Byron. That summer, Shelley and his lover, Mary Godwin, as well as others, stayed with Lord Byron in Switzerland. As a contest, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Mary, who would eventually adopt the name Mary Shelley, began writing her Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which was declared the winner of the contest. The fact that she overtly subtitled the novel emphasizes Shelley's inspiration from the story of Prometheus, drawing particular attention to the "metaphorical parallels."
  In Irish literature, writers such as Seamus Heaney have used the Greek myths to "intertextualize" the actions of the British Government.
  Andrew Lang rewrote the tale of Perseus as the anonymous "The Terrible Head" in The Blue Fairy Book.
  In C. S. Lewis's retelling of Cupid and Psyche, Till We Have Faces, the narrator is Psyche's sister.Roberta Gellis's Shimmering Splendor is a retelling of Cupid and Psyche.
caption: Percy Shelley's work translating the poem Prometheus Unbound (depicted here by Joseph Severn) also helped inspire Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
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