Mythology and the Classical Tradition in English Renaissance Literature

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Greek and Roman mythology are highly entertaining because they offer stories and characters that are truly larger than life. You've got your gods, you've got your heroes, and, most importantly, you've got your crazy vengeful monsters.

Now, what does this all this mythic business have to do with the Renaissance? Well, sometimes, when you're trying to find yourself, you look back to the past for clues as to the person you want to become in the future. What activities did you really enjoy as a kid? What kinds of friends did you make on the playground?

Oops, sorry, getting a little off-track here with the nostalgia. Anyway, since Europe was going through a cultural and artistic rebirth of sorts during the Renaissance, artists of that era looked back to the past in order to figure out how to move forward. Re. Birth. See?

So, they went back to these tales of yore—these awesome stories of heroes and monsters spun by the Greeks and Romans—and decided they were just too cool not to steal. Just kidding, we mean too cool not to… embrace.

That's what artists are always doing, isn't it? Riffing off of each other?

And rather than just lather, rinse, and repeat right through those oldies-but-goodies, Renaissance artists used classical myths as the foundations for their own, novel explorations of the major happenings of their era. They used these allegories to try to better understand some of Europe's political and religious upheavals.

Hey, if you're going to write about how crazy and corrupt a ruler is, you've got a couple of options:

1. Make the rulers talking animals.
2. Make it a mythical allegory. These heroes-and-villains tales make for good reading and they may even save your skin when Mr. Monarchy catches wind of what you've written.

Chew on This

You know who everyone's favorite myth-maker is? Ovid. Want to know why? Mainly because of Metamorphosis. What's better than a whole book of tales about people turning into tree, bees, and birds? Well, probably a lot of things. But still. It's pretty great.

Shakespeare was definitely into ripping off Ovid and other mythical work, given that he named some of his characters directly after the gods. But he also does some more subtle name-dropping. Did you catch his references to Britain's pagan past in Romeo and Juliet? Scope out a little Queen Mab, and tell us what you think.