In Literature
The story of the syrinx is told in Achilles Tatius' Leukippe and Kleitophon where the heroine is subjected to a virginity test by entering a cave where Pan has left syrinx pipes that will sound a melody if she passes. The story became popular among artists and writers in the 19th century. The Victorian artist and poet Thomas Woolner wrote Silenus, a long narrative poem about the myth, in which Syrinx becomes the lover of Silenus, but drowns when she attempts to escape rape by Pan, as a result of the crime Pan is transmuted into a demon figure and Silenus becomes a drunkard. Amy Clampitt's poem Syrinx refers to the myth by relating the whispering of the reeds to the difficulties of language.
The story was used as a central theme by Aifric Mac Aodha in her poetry collection "Gabháil Syrinx".
Samuel R. Delany features an instrument called a syrynx in his classic science-fiction novel Nova.
Read more about this topic: Syrinx
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“In talking with scholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of boyhood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and infinite quality in their esteem.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the “wrong crowd” read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren’t planning to get a Ph.D. from Yale.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)