This Is the Song That Never Ends : Classical Mythology in the Twenty-First-Century Audiovisual Series for Young Adults

Abstract

The appearance of the audiovisual series as a dominant genre on the broadcast entertainment scene was preceded by the millennia-long evolution of episodic narration. The book begins with an inquiry into the history and development of episodic narration to later provide a chronological survey of almost five hundred 21st-century audiovisual series (films are included for context) inspired by classical Antiquity. The data gathered in the survey are then analyzed from the point of view of the variety and frequency of the used myths and classical references, as well as compared with the significant scholarship on the reception of Antiquity (until recently, traditionally focused on cinema). The last chapters pull together a coherent image of the main themes and trends in the 21st-century audiovisual serial narratives inspired by Graeco-Roman mythology.