This Is the Song that Never Ends

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. The publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Poland license (CC BY 3.0 PL) (full license available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode). ****** Ta pieśń nie kończy nigdy się. Mitologia klasyczna w XXI-wiecznych serialach telewizyjnych dla młodzieży Zanim seriale zdominowały telewizję rozrywkową, poprzedziła je dobrze ponad tysiącletnia ewolucja narracji w odcinkach. Książka nakreśla najpierw historię i rozwój epizodycznej narracji, a potem przechodzi do chronologicznego przeglądu prawie pięciuset nakręconych w XXI wieku seriali telewizyjnych dla młodzieży zainspirowanych mitologią starożytną (z dodanymi dla kontekstu filmami). Tak zgromadzone dane zostały następnie zbadane pod względem różnorodności i częstotliwości użytych w serialach mitów i odniesień do starożytności, jak również porównane z literaturą naukową na temat recepcji antyku (do niedawna zajmującej się raczej kinem). Dalsze rozdziały książki przedstawiają spójny obraz głównych tematów i tendencji w serialach telewizyjnych XXI wieku powstałych pod wpływem mitologii grecko-rzymskiej. Publikacja na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 3.0 PL (CC BY 3.0 PL) (pełna treść wzorca dostępna pod adresem: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/pl/legalcode).

Note on the Author 13 Acknowledgements 15 Introduction 17 The What, Why, and How of the Volume 25 Chapter 1. The Audiovisual Series: A Prequel 39 Episodic Storytelling: Its Diversity and Themes 42 Episodic Storytelling: A Roadmap 43 The Evolution of Episodic Storytelling 49 Ancient Epic 49 Greek and Roman Romance 51 Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles 53 Greek Hagiographies 55 Latin Hagiographies 59 Bestiaria 63 Exempla 67 Medieval Epic: Chansons de geste 71 Ancient Themes 74 Arthuriana 79 Narrative Lays 84 Fabliaux 85 Twelfth-Century Byzantine Revival of the Greek Romance 88 Vernacular Byzantine Romance 89 Novellas and Frame Stories 91 Sixteenth-Century Picaresque or Rogue Novel 102 Fairy Tales 106 Seriality in the Age of the Novel 111 Episodic Narratives in Radio and Television 114 Television Series 115 Chapter 2. Chronological Survey of Twenty-First-Century Audiovisual Series and Films Inspired by Classical Antiquity 121 The Purpose and Design of the Survey 123 Chronological Survey of Audiovisual Series and Films Inspired by Classical Antiquity (2000–2023) 126 Chapter 3. Handling the Data 227 A Personal Perspective 229 The Status of Audiovisual Reception Scholarship: Overviews 230 Genres, Heroes and Heroines, Monsters, Specific Ancient Authors and Shows 252 Epic 252 Tragedy 255 Comedy 256 Heroes 257 Heroines 259 Heroes and Heroines ad usum Delphini 259 Antiquity for Children and Younger Adults 260 Mythological Monsters and Creatures 262 Ancient Authors and Their Versions of Myths 264 Monographs on Individual Shows 265 Conclusion 266 Chapter 4. Classical Antiquity in the Twenty-First-Century Audiovisual Series: An Overview in Numbers (and Words) 269 Leading Up to the Twenty-First Century 271 Mapping Mythological Content 294 Collections of Myths 296 Mythology in the Present 297 Parallels and Allusions to Specific Ancient Authors and Myths 308 Immortals? “We Can Be Killed if You Try Hard Enough” 330 Which Gods and Where? 332 Comparing It All 337 Chapter 5. In the Guise of a Conclusion 341 Classically Inspired Witch Shows 345 Classically Inspired Quests 348 More about a Few Selected Classically Inspired Shows 351 Supernatural (2005–2020) 352 Lost Girl (2010–2015) 353 Sleepy Hollow (2013–2017) 355 The Magicians (2015–2020) 356 Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments (2016–2019) 357 American Gods (2017–2021) 358 A Discovery of Witches (2018–2022) 360 The Order (2019–2020) 363 Legacies (2018–2022) 365 Final Thoughts 366 References 375 Index of Audiovisual Productions 447 Index of Mythological Figures 457 Index of Names 461