pathos of idealism in a very effective manner, contrasting it grimly and cynically with frank reality. Galatea is the spirit of sweet, ingenuous, aspiring womanhood; she is ushered into a world of bitterness, jealousy, vulgarity; she loves her maker, who is a narrow-hearted and fatuous sculptor; she meets those who prove to her that life is a thing of sorrow. At the end, forlorn and broken in soul, she returns to her pedestal, utters her melancholy farewell to the world, and becomes again a statue. The satire in a play like this is, of course, rather darkly drawn. The contrast between the innocent Galatea and the selfish Pygmalion is painful, mournful. But is the contrast, is the satire, under-true? There is nothing so beautiful, so bewildering, as the potency of life. It is astonishing, a posteriori, that life is as small, as unsatisfactory, as it is. Pygmalion and Galatea has, in consequence, a depth which it may not appear to have at first sight. It is a trifle on the surface – a jest aimed at our dull human affairs. But the plot has a barbed point. In 2012, biologist Fred Sander used the play "as a 'hook' to explore the ethics and science of cloning" in his book Created In Our Own Images.com. Sander wrote: "Gilbert’s drama not only anticipates psychoanalysis in the 20th century, but also, written a hundred years before the discovery of stem cells, it metaphorically resonates with the 21st century of genomic medicine. ... Gilbert's comedy ... points to new biological, psychological, social, and ethical issues raised by the ... sequencing of the genome and the explosion of stem cell research." Notes References External links Description and text of the play Brief description of the play Links to several reviews of the play Review of 1883 NY production Discussion in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Includes information about the play's popularity Photo of Anderson. At bottom is a photo from a parody of the play Plays by W. S. Gilbert 1871 plays Plays based on Metamorphoses Works based on Pygmalion from Ovid's Metamorphoses