Classical Representations in Popular Culture (Day)

Oates’ Wonderland and the Myth of Kronos

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, the first of a series of young adult books by Rick Riordan, features as its lead female character, Annabeth Chase, purportedly the offspring of a mortal and the goddess Athena, who in Greek mythology never married or had a biological child. This detail is the first of Riordan’s changes to the mythic depiction of Athena so that it fits the needs of his plot and the story.

Ray Harryhausen’s swansong, Clash of the Titans (1981), remains underrepresented in the groundswell of critical literature on Classics and the cinema.  Yet beneath the film’s Saturday-matinee patina — uncomplicated heroics, workmanlike cinematics, and dated special effects — lies a program of myth-making as sophisticated and as self-aware as those of classical poets.  Directing this mythopoetic enterprise is the animator, Harryhausen, whose stop-motion method breathes life (anima) into his creations.  Just as Zeus and Thetis move the

Despite a chronological gulf of nearly 2000 years, the 2nd century writer Longus and the early 20th century novelist Henry de Vere Stacpoole were moved to produce their best works by a similar motive: an urge to explore the world, and particularly the phenomenon of love and desire, from a standpoint of complete innocence.

The original Clash of the Titans offers up a classic Ray Harryhausen rendition of a Greek myth with special effects that still impress.  Screen writer Beverly Cross, husband of Maggie Smith (Thetis in the film), engaged in intertextual writing in of the ancient kind, alluded widely in the film, from other ancient stories, Shakespeare’s The Tempest and MacBeth and even the recent Star Wars films.  Among the ancient stories of especial interest is that of Oedipus.  Features include the oracle that prompted Acrisius to set his daughter adrift (Oe