Not Written in a Vacuum: A Contextual Analysis of Galatea: A Short Storyby Madeline Miller

<ns3:p>This contextual analysis of Galatea: A Short Story by Madeline Miller aims to show how the authorbuilds her story on a dialogue with Ovid’s Metamorphoses and non-literary contexts. After an introductiondescribing the role of Bakhtin’s term „dialogue” and of contexts in the analysis of literaryworks, the paper proceeds to consider whether this text belongs to retellings or re-writings. Then,the article justifi es qualifying Galatea to the group of re-writings as a response to a specifi c literarywork that gives voice to a character who didn’t have it before. Afterward, the paper presents whatPygmalion’s story was like in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and proceeds to analyze what and how Millerchanged. Finally, the article sets the story in a historical and socio-political context, presentingthe socio-political situation in the USA that accompanied the release of Miller’s text.</ns3:p>