Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PRESENTER
What do we mean by classical reception? In simple terms, it's how we describe what happens to things from antiquity. Texts, images, objects, myths, as they travel through time and take on new forms and meanings as they go. It's a process that starts in the ancient world. Watch Aphrodite as she heads from the heights of Mount Olympus in Greece and travels over to Rome.
The Romans adopted most of the Greek pantheon and adapted them to fit Roman culture, worshipping them and telling stories about them in distinctively Roman ways. In Rome, Aphrodite becomes Venus, and is honoured as the mother of the Roman people. Each culture, as it encounters a myth, interprets it and reshapes it to fit its own needs. And the myth keeps on evolving over time.
Even after antiquity, people don't stop being interested in Aphrodite, and the journey of the myth is far from over. Here we are in the mediaeval world, where classical myth takes on new flavours. While Venus was celebrated as a symbol of romantic love by some, she also had to be made suitable for a Christian culture. Her myths turned into moral allegories.
As Aphrodite moves through the centuries, she remains a favourite subject of painters and poets, framed as an icon of beauty in their stories of love and passion. Each new artist and storyteller, and each new audience, is free to shape the goddess and the myth however they want. But the earlier versions aren't forgotten and can keep on influencing each new reception.
As we move towards the present day, the myth still reverberates through popular culture. Aphrodite can be a star of the silver screen, or a platform for exploring feminism or confronting racism. And this isn't a straightforward, one-track journey through time. At every stage, our myth can proliferate and replicate, sending new versions off on a web of new paths.
Aphrodite as a character in a novel might be very different from Venus in a music video, say. And just as that web grows over time, it can extend through space too. Aphrodite travels around the globe, finding new meanings, encountering and blending with other myths in many different cultural settings.
So we see the process of reception as a journey in which there is no such thing as the original myth, but only an ever-changing version of it. Each new retelling or reimagining adds a new layer, building on and adapting what has gone before, while also reflecting the time and culture in which it is produced.