Pygmalion (play) Pygmalion (play) Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological figure. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1913. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story called "Pygmalion and Galatea" that was first presented in 1871. Shaw would also have been familiar with the burlesque version, "Galatea, or Pygmalion
Galatea (mythology) a commonplace of pastoral fictions, because of the well known myth of Acis and Galatea; one of Honoré d'Urfé's characters in "L'Astrée" was a Galatea, though not this sculptural creation. The story of Pygmalion appeared earliest in a Hellenistic work, Philostephanus' history of Cyprus, "De Cypro". It is retold in Ovid's "Metamorphoses", where the king Pygmalion is made into a sculptor who fell in love with an ivory statue he had crafted with his own hands. In answer to his prayers, the goddess Aphrodite brought it to life and united the couple in marriage. This novella remained the classical telling