ABSTRACT
George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is the most famous re-narration of the myth written in English, and it is unsurprising that critics have often compared the play with Ovid’s version. Ovid is clearly a problematic context for Shaw. The links between the two are at once both obvious and tenuous: obvious, because they both share the theme of the transformation of a person; tenuous, because Shaw’s play does not contain, except metaphorically, any of the key episodes of Ovid’s tale. Retaining a passionless innocence whilst speaking passionate lines was not universally lauded however. The unstaged Pygmalion plays of the nineteenth century interpret substance of the myth more along the lines of contemporary poetry than contemporary drama. The notion that Shaw’s Pygmalion is a dramatic departure from Ovid has to be qualified by the acknowledgment that it bears some resemblance to the Victorian plays on the Pygmalion and Cinderella themes, and in particular to Gilbert’s play.
