25 October 2026

Claude's literary references

Hand-drawn illustration of Claude models as characters, explaining why they are named after literary forms: Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, Mythos and Fable

Why are AI models names after literary forms? Because they generate language – just like their literary namesakes – and each form hints at its character: Haiku is fast and light, Sonnet is balanced for everyday tasks, Opus is heavy and built for deep reasoning, Fable is as wise as Mythos, but with guardrails, and Mythos is the wisest, with no restrictions, but invite only. Drawing them as characters is how I remember which is which.