Elysium - Modern Influence

Modern Influence

The term and concept of Elysium has had influence in modern popular culture, reference to Elysium can be found in literature, art, film, and music. Examples include in the New Orleans neighborhood of Elysian Fields in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire as the déclassé purgatory where Blanche Dubois lives with Stanley and Stella Kowalski. New Orleans' Elysian Fields also provides the second act setting of Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine. In his poem Middlesex, John Betjeman describes how a few hedges "Keep alive our lost Elysium - rural Middlesex again". In his poem An Old Haunt, Hugh McFadden sets an Elysian scene in Dublin's St. Stephen's Green park "Very slowly solitude slips round me in St. Stephen's Green. I rest: see pale salmon clouds blossom. I'm back in the fields of Elysium". In Spring and All, William Carlos Williams describes a dying woman's "elysian slobber/upon/the folded handkerchief".

In David Gemmell's Parmennion series (Lion of Macedon and Dark Prince) and his Troy trilogy, his characters refer to Elysium as the "Hall of Heroes". In Siegfried Sassoon's "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man", Sassoon writes "The air was Elysian with early summer". Its use in this context could be prolepsis, as the British countryside he is describing would become the burial ground of his dead comrades and heroes from World War I.

Locations named after Elysium exist in North America including Elysian Park, Los Angeles, Elysian, Minnesota, and Elysian Fields, Texas. The Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the most prestigious avenue in Paris and one of the most famous streets in the world, is French for "Elysian Fields." The nearby Élysée Palace houses the President of the French Republic, for which reason "l'Élysée" frequently appears as a metonym for the French presidency. Elysium and Elysian are also used for numerous other road, hotel, apartment building, and business names all over the world.

Elysium is referenced in the Schiller poem which inspired Beethoven's Ode to Joy (9th symphony, 4th movement). Elysium is also referenced in Mozart's well known Opera "Die Zauberflöte" (The Magic Flute). It is in Act II when Papageno is feeling very melancholy because he doesn't have a sweetheart or wife and he is drunk singing the song that could be called "Den Mädchen" (The Girls).

Elysium Mons is the name given to a volcanic region of Mars and one of its volcanoes. Also, Elysia is a genus of colorful sea slugs.

Elysium is briefly mentioned in Ridley Scott's film Gladiator, wherein the general Maximus addresses his troops thus: "If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already dead!"

In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Heracules' deceased wife and children live happily in Elysian Fields, unaware they are dead. Heracules encounters them while trying to return Persephone to her angry mother Demeter, after she is kidnapped by Hades, who is in love with her.

A manufacturer of high-end computer cooling equipment, Xigmatek, has recently ventured into the computer case market with its premiere model being named the "Xigmatek Elysium".

'Elysium' is the title of the Pet Shop Boys album released in September 2012.

In the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild, Hushpuppy's quest for her mother leads her to a brothel named 'Elysian Fields' likely in reference to the mythic qualities of the protagonist's quest.

In the video game Saints Row 2 there is neighborhood called Elysian Fields located in the Trailer Park distract of Stilwater near the Suburbs. The entire neighborhood is a trailer park and is a stronghold one of the game's rival street gangs the Sons of Samedi. It is located next to Mourning Wood Cemetery, which is somewhat ironic (possibly intentional on the developer's part) given the Elysian Fields being the final resting place of virtuous souls in greek mythology.