Ovid's Myth of Pygmalion on Screen: In Pursuit of the Perfect Woman (Continuum Studies in Classical Reception)

## Acknowledgements I very much appreciate the patience of my publishers and the support and encouragement of editor, Tom Crick, who put up with my redrafting chapters in the last stages of the book. Any errors or infelicities in the fi nal product are entirely my responsibility. Paula James (2011) University of Southampton Classics department. Jane was writing a doctoral dissertation on the legends of Perseus and Pygmalion in nineteenthcentury art and literature. Ovid's infl uence was her starting point and she demonstrated that with Pygmalion Ovid had made a new myth out of a cultic practice, the ritual marriage between the king of Cyprus (Ovid cunningly suppresses Pygmalion's royal status during the narrative) and the statue of the goddess Aphrodite (Roman Venus). However, she discovered that many nineteenth-century texts (visual and written) refl ected and refashioned Ovid's version of Pygmalion in a way that illuminated the ambiguous identity of the sculptor and his statue. Edward Coley Burne-Jones' series of paintings and George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion , were part of her study. 1 Jane's thesis reinforced my belief that placing classical and post-classical texts side by side is not just about tracing the infl uence of the ancient world on later cultures. The modern manifestation of myth can become an interpretative tool for probing the complexity of the original narrative. During my academic career, and in between publishing on a range of Latin authors, I have been enticed back to Ovid and published a number of articles on fi gures and motifs in his epic poem. I have always kept Jane's approach to the reception of Ovid in mind when tracing the before and after of his myths in the Metamorphoses. 2 Over the last two decades I have taught Ovid in schools and universities, not continuously, but with plenty of gaps for refl ection in between. I have very much benefi ted from a steady synergy between research (engaging with an ever-growing body of sensitive and scholarly interpretations of the Metamorphoses ) and conversations in the classroom, the lecture hall and at seminars, to say nothing of feedback after conference presentations. Initially my focus on Pygmalion was prompted by a teaching need rather than a research one. In 1998 a new Open University Level One course was presented. Introduction to the Humanities (1998Humanities ( -2008) ) included Classical Studies as a subject in its own right. In the unit on 'Myths and Conventions,' Open University students read the Greek tragedy Medea in translation and studied George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. Cicely Palser Havely of the English Literature department wrote an excellent critique of Shaw, starting with a discussion of the myth and its function. Students were encouraged to explore the connections between the play and Ovid's narrative, so in my evening lecture at the residential school I suggested ways in which Shaw had reversed, refashioned and departed from the story of the statue. Exploration of the reception of Ovid's myth thorughout history in fiction, film and television. Why has the myth of Pygmalion and his ivory statue proved so inspirational for writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, and directors and creators of films and television series? The 'authorised' version of the story appears in the epic poem of transformations, "Metamorphoses", by the first-century CE Latin poet Ovid; in which the bard Orpheus narrates the legend of the sculptor king of Cyprus whose beautiful carved woman was brought to life by the goddess Venus. Focusing on screen storylines with a "Pygmalion" subtext, from silent cinema to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Lars and the Real Girl", this book looks at why and how the made-over or manufactured woman has survived through the centuries and what we can learn about this problematic model of 'perfection' from the perspective of the past and the present. Given the myriad representations of Ovid's myth, can we really make a modern text a tool of interpretation for an ancient poem? This book answers with a resounding 'yes' and explains why it is so important to give antiquity back its future. "Continuum Studies in Classical Reception" presents scholarly monographs offering new and innovative research and debate to students and scholars in the reception of 'Classical Studies'. Each volume will explore the appropriation, reconceptualization and recontextualization of various aspects of the Graeco-Roman world and its culture, looking at the impact of the ancient world on modernity. Research will also cover reception within antiquity, the theory and practice of translation, and reception theory. Cover 1 Half-title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction 12 Chapter 1 Ovid’s Rich Text: Layers of Identity in the Pygmalion Myth 21 Chapter 2 Tragic Transformations: Making and Breaking the Statue on Screen 47 Chapter 3 Romancing the Stone: the Made- Over Woman as Comedy 76 Chapter 4 She Was Venus All Along: the Statue as Screen Goddess 102 Chapter 5 Pygmalion’s Robots: the Horror and the Humour 126 Chapter 6 Bathos and Pathos: a Simulacrum among Simulacra 148 Chapter 7 Virtually Perfect: Hi and Lo Tech Gals of the Computer Age 161 Chapter 8 More Myth Making at the Movies 185 Appendix: Ovid’s Pygmalion 197 Notes 199 Bibliography 218 Filmography 226 Index 229