Metamorphoses - Inspirations and Adaptations

Inspirations and Adaptations

The story of Coronis and Phoebus Apollo was adapted by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, where it forms the basis for the Manciple's tale.

Metamorphoses was a considerable influence on English playwright William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is influenced by the story of Pyramus and Thisbe (Metamorphoses Book 4), and, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a band of amateur actors performs a play about Pyramus and Thisbe. Shakespeare's early erotic poem Venus and Adonis expands on the myth in Book 10 of the Metamorphoses. In Titus Andronicus, the story of Lavinia's rape is drawn from Tereus' rape of Philomela, and the text of Metamorphoses is used within the play to enable Titus to interpret his daughter's story. Yet, most tellingly, Shakespeare adapts, with minor changes, a passage from Book 7 of the Golding translation into an important speech in Act V of The Tempest.

• In 1613, Spanish poet Luis de Góngora wrote an illustrious poem titled La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea that retells the story of Polyphemus, Galatea and Acis found in Book XIII of the Metamorphoses.
• In 1625, sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini finished his piece entitled Apollo and Daphne, taken from the episode in Book 1 in which Apollo, pierced by a love-inducing arrow from Cupid, pursues the fleeing nymph Daphne. This episode furthermore has been treated repeatedly in opera, notably by Jacopo Peri (Dafne) in 1597 and Richard Strauss (Daphne, with a libretto that deviates significantly from Ovid's account) in 1938.
• In 1783, Austrian composer Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf wrote twelve symphonies on selected stories of the Metamorphoses; only six survive, corresponding to stories from the first six books.
• Ruben Dario's Collection of poems, "Prosas Profanas" (1896) contains the poem "Coloquio de los Centauros" based upon Ovid's Metamorphoses.
• In 1951, British composer Benjamin Britten wrote a piece for solo oboe incorporating six of Ovid's mythical characters.
• In 1988, author Christoph Ransmayr reworked a great number of characters from the Metamorphoses in his The Last World.
• In 1997, the British poet laureate Ted Hughes adapted twenty-four stories from the Metamorphoses into his volume of poetry Tales from Ovid. This was later adapted for the stage in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1999, the year after Hughes's death..
• In 2000, author Phillip Terry edited a collection of modern adaptations of some of Ovid's myths as Ovid Metamorphosed. Contributors included Margaret Atwood.
• In 2002, author Mary Zimmerman adapted some of Ovid's myths into a play by the same title, and the open-air-theatre group London Bubble also adapted it in 2006.
• Naomi Iizuka's Polaroid Stories also bases its format on Metamorphoses, adapting Ovid's poem to modern times with drug-addicted, teenage versions of many of the characters from the original play.
• Acis and Galatea, a masque by Händel, is based on the eponymous characters out of the Metamorphoses, as is Lully's opera Acis et Galatée.
• Jazz artist Patricia Barber's 2006 album, Mythologies, is a set of songs based on Ovid's Metamorphoses.
• Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis's 2009 album Metamorphosen is based on Ovid's epic Metamorphoses.
• In 2009, British Author Adrian Mitchell wrote a collection entitled "Shapeshifters: Tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses", intended for Young Adult readers. This is one of Mitchell's last books, as he died in 2008, and it was published posthumously.
• In 2010, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre presented a new adaptation of Metamorphoses at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.