Re-interpretations of Pygmalion
The basic Pygmalion story has been widely transmitted and re-presented in the arts through the centuries. At an unknown date, later authors give as the name of the statue that of the sea-nymph Galatea or Galathea. Goethe calls her Elise, based upon the variants in the story of Dido/Elissa.
A variant of this theme can also be seen in the story of Pinocchio, in which a wooden puppet is transformed into a real boy, though in this case the puppet possesses sentience prior to its transformation; it is the puppet and not its creator, the woodcarver Mister Geppetto, who beseeches the miracle.
William Shakespeare, in the final scene of A Winter's Tale, a statue of Queen Hermione which comes to life, is revealed as Hermione herself, so bringing the play to a conclusion of reconciliations.
In George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, a modern variant of the myth with a subtle hint of feminism, the underclass flower-girl Eliza Doolittle is metaphorically "brought to life" by a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, who teaches her to refine her accent and conversation in social situations.
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