Editing Adonis (section)

== In post-classical literature culture ==
The medieval French poet [[Jean de Meun]] retells the story of Adonis in his additions to the ''[[Roman de la Rose]]'', written around 1275.{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=7}} De Muen moralises the story, using it as an example of how men should heed the warnings of the women they love.{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=7}} In [[Pierre de Ronsard]]'s poem "Adonis" (1563), Venus laments that Adonis did not heed her warning, but ultimately blames herself for his death, declaring, "In need my counsel failed you."{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=7}} In the same poem, however, Venus quickly finds another shepherd as her lover, representing the widespread medieval belief in the fickleness and mutability of women.{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=7}}

The story of Venus and Adonis from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' was tremendously influential during the [[Elizabethan era]].{{sfn|Hull|2010|pages=7–8}} In [[Edmund Spenser]]'s epic poem ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (1590), tapestries depicting the story of Adonis decorate the walls of Castle Joyous.{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=7}} Later in the poem, Venus takes the character Amoretta to raise her in the "Garden of Adonis".{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=7}} Ovid's portrayal of Venus's desperate love for Adonis became the inspiration for many literary portrayals in Elizabethan literature of both male and female courtship.{{sfn|Hull|2010|pages=7–8}}

[[William Shakespeare]]'s erotic [[Narrative poetry|narrative poem]] ''[[Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare poem)|Venus and Adonis]]'' (1593), a retelling of the courtship of Aphrodite and Adonis from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'',{{sfn|Lákta|2017|pages=56–58}}{{sfn|Cyrino|2010|page=131}} was the most popular of all his works published within his own lifetime.{{sfn|Lákta|2017|page=58}}{{sfn|Hiscock|2017|page=unpaginated}} Six editions of it were published before Shakespeare's death (more than any of his other works){{sfn|Hiscock|2017|page=unpaginated}} and it enjoyed particularly strong popularity among young adults.{{sfn|Lákta|2017|page=58}} In 1605, [[Richard Barnfield]] lauded it, declaring that the poem had placed Shakespeare's name "in fames immortall Booke".{{sfn|Hiscock|2017|page=unpaginated}} Despite this, the poem has received a mixed reception from modern critics.{{sfn|Lákta|2017|page=58}} [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] defended it, but [[Samuel Butler (poet)|Samuel Butler]] complained that it bored him, and [[C. S. Lewis]] described an attempted reading of it as "suffocating".{{sfn|Lákta|2017|page=58}}

The story of Adonis was the inspiration for the Italian poet [[Giambattista Marino]] to write his mythological epic ''L'Adone'' (1623), which outsold Shakespeare's ''[[First Folio]]''.{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=7}} Shakespeare's homoerotic descriptions of Adonis's masculine and Venus's beauty inspired the French novelist and playwright [[Rachilde]] (Marguerite Vallette-Eymery) to write her erotic novel ''[[Monsieur Vénus]]'' (1884), about a noblewoman named Raoule de Vénérande who sexually pursues a young, [[Effeminacy|effeminate]] man named Jacques who works in a flower shop.{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=8}} Jacques is ultimately shot and killed in a duel, thus following the model of Adonis's tragic death.{{sfn|Hull|2010|page=8}}

=== As a dying and rising god ===
[[File:JamesGeorgeFrazer.jpg|thumb|Photograph of [[James George Frazer|Sir James George Frazer]], the [[Anthropology|anthropologist]] who is most directly responsible for promoting the concept of a "dying and rising god" archetype{{sfn|Ehrman|2012|pages=222–223}}{{sfn|Barstad|1984|page=149}}{{sfn|Eddy|Boyd|2007|pages=142–143}}]]
{{main|Dying-and-rising deity}}
The late nineteenth-century Scottish [[Anthropology|anthropologist]] [[James George Frazer|Sir James George Frazer]] wrote extensively about Adonis in his monumental study of comparative religion, ''[[The Golden Bough]]'' (the first edition of which was published in 1890){{sfn|Ehrman|2012|pages=222–223}}{{sfn|Mettinger|2004|page=375}} as well as in later works.{{sfn|Barstad|1984|pages=149–150}} Frazer claimed that Adonis was just one example of the archetype of a "dying-and-rising god" found throughout all cultures.{{sfn|Barstad|1984|page=149}}{{sfn|Ehrman|2012|pages=222–223}}{{sfn|Eddy|Boyd|2007|pages=140–142}} In the mid-twentieth century, some scholars began to criticise the designation of "dying-and-rising god", in some cases arguing that deities like Adonis, previously referred to as "dying and rising", would be better termed separately as "dying gods" and "disappearing gods",{{sfn|Smith|1987|pages=521–527}}{{sfn|Mettinger|2004|page=374}} asserting that gods who "died" did not return, and those who returned never "really" died.{{sfn|Smith|1987|pages=521–527}}{{sfn|Mettinger|2004|page=374}}

Biblical scholars Eddy and Boyd (2007) applied this rationale to Adonis based on the fact that his portion of the year spent in the Underworld with Persephone is not really a death and resurrection, but merely an instance of a living person staying in the Underworld.{{sfn|Eddy|Boyd|2007|page=143}} They further argued that Adonis is not explicitly described as rising from the dead in any extant Classical Greek writings,{{sfn|Eddy|Boyd|2007|page=143}}{{sfn|Burkert|1985|page=177}} though the fact that such a belief existed is attested by authors in Late Antiquity.{{sfn|Eddy|Boyd|2007|page=143}} For example, [[Origen]] discusses Adonis, whom he associates with Tammuz, in his  ''Selecta in Ezechielem'' ( "Comments on Ezekiel"), noting that "they say that for a long time certain rites of initiation are conducted: first, that they weep for him, since he has died; second, that they rejoice for him because he has risen from the dead (''apo nekrôn anastanti'')" (cf. J.-P. Migne, ''Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca'', 13:800).

Some other scholars have continued to cite Adonis/Tammuz as an example of a dying and rising god, suggesting that the descent into and return from the underworld is a functional analogue for death even if no physical cause of death is depicted.{{sfn|Dalley|1989}}{{sfn|Corrente|2012}}{{sfn|Corrente|2019}}

<gallery mode="packed" heights="180px">
File:Annibale Carracci - Venus, Adonis and Cupid - WGA4428.jpg|''Venus and Adonis'' ({{circa}} 1595) by [[Annibale Carracci]]
File:Cornelis Holsteyn - Venus de dood van Adonis bewenend 1638-58.jpg|''Venus and Cupid lamenting the dead Adonis'' (1656) by [[Cornelis Holsteyn]]
File:Luca Giordano 020.jpg|''Death of Adonis'' (1684–1686) by [[Luca Giordano]]
File:Giuseppe-Mazzuoli-The-Death-of-Adonis-hermitag.jpg|''[[The Death of Adonis (Mazzuoli)]]'' (1709) by [[Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1644–1725)|Giuseppe Mazzuoli]]
File:Venus and Adonis. Francois Lemoyne.jpg|''[[Aphrodite|Venus]] and Adonis'' (1792) by [[François Lemoyne]]
File:The Awakening of Adonis - John William Waterhouse (1899).jpg|''The Awakening of Adonis'' (1899–1900) by [[John William Waterhouse]]
</gallery>