Pygmalion

his devotion to his art and to his love constellates auspiciously the archetypal psyche—the statue—and brings it to life with positive effects. Don Giovanni’s inflated and cynical attitude constellates the archetypal psyche—the statue—in its negative aspect

Edinger reads Pygmalion as the positive pole of a dyad with Don Giovanni, arguing that the quality of one’s devotion to the archetypal image determines whether the animate statue constellates creatively or destructively.

Edinger, Edward F., The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995thesis

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craftsmen capable of such work I have already mentioned Hephaistos, the greatest of the Kabeiroi of Lemnos, and Pygmalion, or Pygmaion, king of Cyprus. Another such craftsman was Prometheus

Kerényi places Pygmalion within a pantheon of divine craftsmen—alongside Hephaistos and Prometheus—whose art crosses the boundary between fashioned matter and living being, linking him to primordial creation mythemes.

Kerényi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951thesis

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In Cyprus Pygmalion was thought to have been a king and one of Aphrodite’s lovers. We do not know how his name was pronounced amongst the non-Gr

Kerényi establishes Pygmalion’s mythological provenance as a Cypriot king and devotee of Aphrodite, situating the story within the goddess’s own domain of erotic transformation.

Kerényi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951supporting

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Galatea comes over the seas on her throne. You remember Pygmalion, who made a beautiful statue of Galatea, and then prayed to the gods to make her real. His wish was granted

Jung invokes the Pygmalion–Galatea myth in the context of Faust’s Homunculus to illustrate the psyche’s deep longing to animate the purely imaginal into living form.

Jung, C.G., Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984supporting

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Pygmalion, III 6

Nietzsche’s index entry situates Pygmalion within the third essay of the Genealogy—the discussion of ascetic ideals—implying the sculptor as a figure whose eros is sublimated into the created ideal rather than directed toward a living other.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals, 1887supporting

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his mistress a work of art, the work of art his mistress. And the work of art not only becomes itself a living creature, it can be appreciated only by the whole embodied self, by a sort of love which partakes of eros

McGilchrist describes Goethe’s Römische Elegien as enacting the Pygmalion dynamic implicitly—the boundary between artwork and beloved dissolves through an eros that is both erotic and aesthetic.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009aside

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Pygmaion, /as, 212 Pygmalion, /as, 212

The index entry in Kerényi’s Gods of the Greeks cross-references both variant spellings of the name, confirming the term’s philological instability and its dual anchoring in Greek and Hellenised Cypriot tradition.

Kerényi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951aside

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