Daily Junction.mobi portal<p>This was one of the great strengths of caricature. A political print could operate on more than one level. For someone with little knowledge of classical mythology, the visual joke could be immediate: Pitt as a baby, or a politician with the ears of a donkey. The image could be <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-95595-2">enjoyed</a> as cheap entertainment, discussed in the street or in coffee houses and displayed in the windows of print shops.</p>
<p>For those with greater knowledge, the same image carried another layer of meaning. Understanding the original myth made the joke richer and gave the political attack greater force.</p>
<p>This helps explain why Greek mythology proved so useful to 18th-century caricaturists. They didn’t need to explain every detail. The stories already provided a shared cultural language.</p>
<p>And that language was not entirely confined to the educated elite. Greek mythology itself had always been a product of retelling. Before the stories were written down, they were passed on orally by performers who could adapt them for different audiences. </p>
<p>The caricaturists of the 18th century were doing something remarkably similar. They changed the medium and the details, but kept the underlying stories recognisable.</p>
<p>Christopher Nolan is doing the same thing today. His Odyssey may have been shown on gigantic Imax screens rather than as a hand-coloured print in a London shop window, but the principle is familiar.</p>
<p>Every generation rewrites Greek myth because every generation sees itself in these stories. The myths survive not because they remain unchanged, but because they can change with us.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/288950/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
<p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/callum-smith-2503463">Callum Smith</a>, Historian of Modern British History & Head of Online Learning, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/aberystwyth-university-999">Aberystwyth University</a></em></span></p>
<p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/before-greek-myths-reached-the-multiplex-they-were-weapons-of-political-satire-288950">original article</a>.</p> </div>