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With the rediscovery ofclassical antiquity in theRenaissance, the poetry ofOvid became a major influence on the imagination of poets and artists, and remained a fundamental influence on the diffusion and perception ofclassical mythology through subsequent centuries.[2] From the early years of the Renaissance, artists portrayed subjects fromGreek andRoman mythology alongside more conventional Christian themes. Among the best-known subjects of Italian artists areBotticelli'sBirth of Venus andPallas and the Centaur, theLedas ofLeonardo da Vinci andMichelangelo, andRaphael'sGalatea.[2] Through the medium ofLatin and the works of Ovid, Greek myth influenced medieval and Renaissance poets such asPetrarch,Boccaccio andDante inItaly.[1]
In northern Europe, Greek mythology never took the same hold of the visual arts, but its effect was very obvious on literature. Both Latin and Greek classical texts were translated, so that stories of mythology became available. In England,Chaucer, theElizabethans andJohn Milton were among those influenced by Greek myths; nearly all the major English poets fromShakespeare toRobert Bridges turned for inspiration to Greek mythology.Jean Racine inFrance andGoethe inGermany revived Greek drama.[2] Racine reworked the ancient myths – including those ofPhaedra,Andromache,Oedipus andIphigeneia – to new purpose.[3]
In the 18th century, the philosophical revolution of theEnlightenment spread throughout Europe. It was accompanied by a certain reaction against Greek myth; there was a tendency to insist on the scientific and philosophical achievements of Greece and Rome. The myths, however, continued to provide an important source of raw material for dramatists, including those who wrote thelibretti forHandel's operasAdmeto andSemele,Mozart'sIdomeneo, andGluck'sIphigénie en Aulide.[3] By the end of the century,Romanticism initiated a surge of enthusiasm for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In Britain, it was a great period for new translations of Greek tragedies andHomer's works, and these in turn inspired contemporary poets, such asKeats,Byron, andShelley.[4] TheHellenism ofQueen Victoria'spoet laureate,Alfred Lord Tennyson, was such that even his portraits of the quintessentially English court ofKing Arthur are suffused with echoes of the Homeric epics. The visual arts kept pace, stimulated by the purchase of theParthenon marbles in 1816; many of the "Greek" paintings ofLord Leighton andLawrence Alma-Tadema were seriously accepted as part of the transmission of the Hellenic ideal.[5]
American authors of the 19th century, such asThomas Bulfinch andNathaniel Hawthorne, believed that myths should provide pleasure, and held that the study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of English and American literature.[6] According to Bulfinch, "The so-called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste."[7] In more recent times, classical themes have been reinterpreted by such major dramatists asJean Anouilh,Jean Cocteau, andJean Giraudoux in France,Eugene O'Neill in America, andT. S. Eliot in England, and by great novelists such as the IrishJames Joyce and the FrenchAndré Gide.Richard Strauss,Jacques Offenbach and many others have set Greek mythological themes to music.[1]