Phoenix in Popular Culture - in Literature

In Literature

• Classical references to the phoenix include the early Christian Apostolic Father 1 Clement, the Greek historian Herodotus, Tacitus and Ovid.
• William Shakespeare frequently mentions the bird in his plays. He also wrote the poem The Phoenix and the Turtle.
• In certain works of Renaissance literature, the phoenix is said to have been eaten as the rarest of dishes – for only one was alive at any one time. Jonson, in Volpone (1605), III, vii. 204-5 writes: 'could we get the phœnix, though nature lost her kind, shee were our dish.' Another mention of the phoenix as a culinary delicacy occurs in John Webster's The White Devil (1612).
• Edith Nesbit's famous children's novel, The Phoenix and the Carpet is based on this legendary creature and its friendship with a family of children.
• D. H. Lawrence frequently used the phoenix as a symbol for rebirth in life. The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence carries the motif on its covers.
• In Robert E. Howard's tale of King Conan of Aquilonia, "The Phoenix on the Sword", the supernatural scribe Epimetreus inscribes a mystical Phoenix symbol on the blade of Conan's broadsword, to aid against a supernatural enemy.
• Edward Ormondroyd's 1957 children's novel David and the Phoenix features the phoenix as a main character.
• In C. S. Lewis' book, The Magician's Nephew, a phoenix guards an Eden-like garden. It also appears later in The Last Battle.
• The phoenix was also famed for being a symbol of the rise and fall of society, Montag and Faber in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The pattern of an over complacent and abusive society's destruction yielding a fresh new start was compared to the Phoenix's mythological pattern of consumption by flame, then resurrection out of ashes.
• Sylvia Plath also alludes to the phoenix in the end of her famous poem "Lady Lazarus."
• J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels feature a phoenix, named Fawkes.) In Harry Potter's world, phoenixes can carry enormous weights, and their song is said to strike fear into the hearts of the impure and courage into those who are pure of heart. The tears of the phoenix can heal severe poisoning, and other illnesses and injuries. The presence of a phoenix reinforces the underlying theme of overcoming death by embracing life found throughout the series, and many of the traits of the phoenix follow closely with the myth.
• In Neil Gaiman's short story "Firebird", a party of Epicureans finally answer the question of what happens when a Phoenix is roasted and eaten; you burst into flames, and 'the years burn off you'. This can kill those who are unexperienced, but those who have swallowed fire and practised with glow-worms can achieve an immensely satisfying eternal youth.
• In Terry Pratchett's novel Carpe Jugulum, the search for the phoenix forms an important side plot.
• In Phoenix Rising, by Karen Hesse, Trent mentions the Phoenix several times while he's lying in bed, and one time or two the main character questions Trent about the Phoenix and its background.
• In Steven Brust's books set in the world of Dragaera, the House of the Phoenix is linked biologically to the phoenix and metaphorically to the theme of rebirth. Phoenix and The Phoenix Guards are the titles of two of Brust's books, in the Vlad Taltos series and the Khaavren Romances, respectively.