Pygmalion (mythology) Pygmalion (mythology) Pygmalion (; Ancient Greek: Πυγμαλίων "Pugmalíōn", "gen".: Πυγμαλίωνος) is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though "Pygmalion" is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name "Pumayyaton", he is most familiar from Ovid's narrative poem "Metamorphoses", in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides he was "not interested in women", but his statue was so beautiful and realistic that he fell in love with it. In time, Aphrodite's festival
Ancient Greek literature the most popular books ever published in the United States". George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" is a modern, rationalized retelling of the ancient Greek legend of Pygmalion. James Joyce's novel "Ulysses", heralded by critics as one of the greatest works of modern literature, is a retelling of Homer's "Odyssey" set in modern-day Dublin. The mid-twentieth-century British author Mary Renault wrote a number of critically acclaimed novels inspired by ancient Greek literature and mythology, including "The Last of the Wine" and "The King Must Die". Even in works that do not consciously draw on Graeco-Roman literature, authors often employ concepts and