Geração de Orpheu literature with principal function of agitating, subverting and scandalizing the Portuguese bourgeoisie and - by extension - all social conventions. The journal's name, "Orpheu" was not chosen by accident - as in Greek myth, Orpheus ("Orfeu" in Portuguese) was the musician who, to save his wife Eurydice from Hades, had to travel from the world of the living with the stipulation to not looking back. It was this metaphor that was important to the men of the Geração de Orpheu: the not looking back, the forgetting, the relinquishing of the past and the concentration of attention and force to the
Orpheus under Medea's guidance, is reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. More directly, the story of Orpheus is similar to the ancient Greek tales of Persephone captured by Hades and similar stories of Adonis captive in the underworld. However, the developed form of the Orpheus myth was entwined with the Orphic mystery cults and, later in Rome, with the development of Mithraism and the cult of Sol Invictus. According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus' lost play "Bassarids", Orpheus, towards the end of his life, disdained the worship of all gods except the sun,