Pygmalion and Galatea: The History of a Narrative in English Literature

Pygmalion and Galatea presents an account of the development of the Pygmalion story from its origins in early Greek myth to the twentieth century, focusing on its use in nineteenth-century British literature.Despite interest in the story by famous authors, for example George Bernard Shaw, until now there has been no full study of the history of the Pygmalion story in print. This book represents the first effort to trace the morphology of the tale, focusing on the interaction of its many and various renarrations. Joshua follows its progress from Ovid's Metamorphoses, the most influential version of the tale, through later versions that embellish and revise the story. She analyzes the considerable rise in the story's popularity during the nineteenth century and shows how these renarrations reveal male fantasies of womanhood, giving expression to ideas on the dominance, oppression, education and controlling of women; and how Galatea's nude body is condemned, by some, as an emblem for Hellenic excess.The author does not confine her concerns merely to the story's revelation of gender issues. She explores how clusters of Pygmalion texts disclose other interests, such as the nature of artistic creativity, the Post-Romantic interest in dream, and Victorian Hellenism's clash with moral obsession. Through this study, she demonstrates how the nineteenth century begins with a heavy preoccupation with the art-work as the embodiment of the artist's ideals and visions, and ends with the emasculation of the artist as the focus moves to the empowerment of the woman and the overturning of the patriarchal power of Pygmalion.