Many writers hope their work will live beyond them. But when Greek poets and playwrights began recording their country’s myths and legends more than 2,700 years ago, they couldn’t have known quite how long a shelf life these stories would have. Greek mythology is a dominant theme in pop culture in 2023, with publishing houses churning out modern retellings, TV bosses racing to release shows about Zeus and Persephone, and Gen Z’ers debating plot points on TikTok like they’re analysing an episode of Euphoria. How did we get here — and will this obsession with ancient Greece ever peak?
Felix Barrett MBE, artistic director of immersive theatre company Punchdrunk, says Greek myths are appealing because they’re “blissfully open to interpretation”. The Burnt City, Punchdrunk’s Greek myth-inspired production set in a post-Trojan War fantasy world, is currently winning rave reviews in Woolwich. “[Greek myths have] gods and monsters, political dramas and familial sagas — look at Succession, you can see the origins of that in the Greek [myths about] warring families,” says Barrett. “These stories resonate today as they would have done then.”
The Burnt City is far from the only way to indulge a fascination with Greek mythology this spring. On April 11, Jennifer Saint — one of the biggest names in the now-crowded genre of feminist Greek myth retellings — releases her much-anticipated third novel, Atalanta. Sophie Okonedo is starring in Robinson Jeffers’ critically-lauded adaptation of Medea at Soho Place, while the legend of a Cretan princess is relocated to modern-day London in Phaedra at the National Theatre. In May, Krapopolis — a Greek myth-inspired cartoon series from the creator of Rick and Morty, starring Richard Ayoade — launches in the US, with a UK release expected later this year.
“There’s something universally appealing about Greek mythology,” says Saint. She published her first novel Ariadne in 2021, following Margaret Atwood, Madeline Miller, Pat Barker and Natalie Haynes in writing women-centric retellings of Greek myths. Now the genre is a bona fide fiction sensation, with big titles released in 2023 so far including The Heroines by Laura Shepperson and Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. Saint is “nowhere near tired” of these. “As a reader, I’m always really excited when I see somebody has a different take on a story.”
Of course, there’s nothing new about Greek myths being reworked. The current crop of female-focused fiction was sparked by fourth-wave feminism and #MeToo, but it’s “very much in the spirit of Greek mythology”, says Aimee Hinds Scott, a PhD student researching Greek mythology and pop culture at the University of Roehampton. Myth was “flexible” in the ancient world, Hinds Scott explains, with ancient authors and playwrights constantly riffing on their culture’s legends. More recently, this legacy of retellings means many of us feel nostalgic for the Greek myth adaptations of our youth. Gen X will remember the 1981 blockbuster Clash of the Titans, millennials are all about Disney’s gospel musical Hercules, and the 2000s YA novel series Percy Jackson & the Olympians is more beloved than Harry Potter among zoomers. Children in the UK also study Greek mythology in primary school, giving us a deep-rooted familiarity with the stories.
Nostalgia — a word, coincidentally, with Greek roots — has been described by some psychologists as an emotion that connects us to other people, and Greek mythology is certainly connecting people online. TikTok is home to a community of myth obsessives: videos tagged #greekmythology have been viewed 2.6 billion times, while #greekmythologybooks has more than 15 million views. Jillian Taylor is publisher at Penguin’s Michael Joseph imprint, which has published Greek myth retellings including Stephen Fry’s Mythos trilogy (he’ll publish a fourth retelling in 2024). She compares the community that has sprung up around Greek myths to that surrounding crime fiction. “Bloggers want to engage with publishers and authors and discuss why they love this [genre],” she says. At an event in February to mark the publication of Clytemnestra, Taylor says 100 people queued in Piccadilly Waterstones to meet debut author Costanza Casati. “It’s unheard of — we never see that.”
This interest in female-focused retellings is having a ripple effect. Taylor notes the emergence of the “romantasy” genre, which gives Greek myths the romance novel treatment (BookTok, which in 2021 helped push Madeline Miller’s The Song Of Achilles back into the bestseller charts a decade later, has also been credited with fuelling a boom in romantic fiction). Greek myth-inspired romance novels out this year include Psyche and Eros by Luna McNamara, Gold by Raven Kennedy, and Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald. There are also novels offering queer interpretations, such as the forthcoming Herc by Phoenicia Rogerson, and starring Black and brown characters, including those by popular YA authors Kalynn Bayron and Lilliam Rivera. Taylor ascribes this expansion to publishers noticing when “there is appetite for exploring different parts of a genre within the market.” As another bookseller puts it: “Publishing loves a success story.”
And when a certain genre of fiction is galloping across the bestseller charts and exciting fans on TikTok, TV execs pay attention. Next year, Kaos — a dark comedy series about the Greek gods starring Jeff Goldblum as Zeus — will drop on Netflix, with a new Percy Jackson series arriving on Disney+. A YA animated series based on cult romance webcomic Lore Olympus (a retelling of the myth of Persephone) is also in development at the company founded by Muppets creator Jim Henson. Holly de Angelis, development producer at comedy production company Fudge Park, predicts that more Greek myth adaptations will arrive on the small screen. “As long as people keep buying into something, [TV commissioners] will keep running with it.”
Not everyone is delighted about the proliferation of Greek myth content, however. “It’s not how I feel, but I’ve definitely seen people on Twitter saying ‘please, for the love of god, no more,” says Ben Pope, manager of Review bookshop in Peckham. The genre’s devoted fans often hit back hard at these complaints: another London bookshop owner, who asked not to be named, says she’s “sick to the back teeth of the ‘feminist retelling of X Greek myth’ trope”, but would never say so openly online. “People get weirdly defensive about this genre, and frankly I don’t need the hassle.”
Waterstones’ head of fiction Bea Carvalho believes that while “there might reach a natural point where something else is capturing the imagination of the BookTok audience”, modern Greek myth retellings are largely here to stay — and will continue having an impact on wider pop culture. But the genre’s success is also fuelling readers’ interest in retellings of historical narratives, classic fiction and myths from other cultures. Out last month, Lady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler offers a new perspective on the Scottish queen who inspired Shakespeare’s anti-heroine; later this year, Our Hideous Progeny by C E McGill follows the adventures of Victor Frankenstein’s niece, and Bliss and Blunder by Victoria Gosling reworks Arthurian legend.
Meanwhile, authors including Bolu Babalola, Sue Lynn Tan and Vaishnavi Patel are among those with books reinterpreting stories from Africa, India and China. At a time when so much about life feels bleak, the desire to get lost in ancient fantasy worlds seems unlikely to lose its appeal.
Legendary offerings to watch, read and wear this spring
The play: Medea at Soho Place
Catch Sophie Okonedo’s performance in this story of a grieving woman out for revenge, until April 22.
The novel: Atalanta by Jennifer Saint
After two tragic novels, Saint’s third, about the only female Argonaut, is a celebration of female joy.
Out April 11, £16.99, Headline
The fashion: Edward Crutchley
The London designer’s SS23 show was inspired by Greek myths, the god Proteus, and the philosopher Heraclitus.
