スコットランド自由教会のプロテスタント牧師であったアレキサンダー・ヒスロップは、1853年に出版した小冊子『二つのバビロン』で、ローマ・カトリックは実はバビロニアの異教を装っているという主張の一環として、現代英語のイースターはイシュタルに由来するはずだと、二つの単語の音韻が似ていることから誤って主張したのである<ref>Hislop, 1903, page103</ref><ref group="私注">この点についての管理人の考えは'''[[エオステレ]]'''参照のこと。そもそも、イナンナとイシュタルが言語的に同起源とは思えないのに、無理矢理習合させてしまったアッカドのサルゴンにも問題があると考える。</ref>。現代の学者たちは、ヒスロップの主張は誤りであり、バビロニアの宗教に対する誤った理解に基づいていると、一様に否定している<ref>Grabbe, 1997, page28</ref><ref>Brown, 1976, page268</ref><ref>D'Costa, 2013</ref>。それにもかかわらず、ヒスロップの本は福音主義プロテスタントの一部のグループの間でいまだに人気があり<ref>Grabbe, 1997, page28</ref>、その中で宣伝された考えは、特にインターネットを通じて、多くの人気のあるインターネット・ミームによって広く流布している<ref>D'Costa, 2013</ref>。
イシュタルは、1884年にアメリカの弁護士兼実業家であるレオニダス・ル・チェンチ・ハミルトンが、最近翻訳された『ギルガメッシュ叙事詩』に緩く基づいて書いた長編詩『イシュタルとイズドゥバル』<ref>Ziolkowski, 2012, pages20–21</ref>に大きく登場した<ref>Ziolkowski, 2012, pages20–21</ref>。イシュタルとイズドゥバルは、『ギルガメシュ叙事詩』の約3000行を、48のカントにまとめた約6000行の韻文対句に拡張した<ref>Ziolkowski, 2012, page21</ref>。ハミルトンは、ほとんどの登場人物を大幅に変更し、オリジナルの叙事詩にはない全く新しいエピソードを導入した<ref>Ziolkowski, 2012, page21</ref>。エドワード・フィッツジェラルドの『オマール・ハイヤームのルバイヤート』やエドウィン・アーノルドの『アジアの光』から大きな影響を受け<ref>Ziolkowski, 2012, page21</ref>、ハミルトンの登場人物は、古代バビロニアというよりは19世紀のトルコ人のような服装をしている<ref>Ziolkowski, 2012, pages22–23</ref>。
Ishtar had a major appearance in ''Ishtar and Izdubar'', a book-length poem written in 1884 by Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton, an American lawyer and businessman, loosely based on the recently translated ''Epic of Gilgamesh''. ''Ishtar and Izdubar'' expanded the original roughly 3,000 lines of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' to roughly 6,000 lines of rhyming couplets grouped into forty-eight [[canto]]s. Hamilton significantly altered most of the characters and introduced entirely new episodes not found in the original epic. Significantly influenced by [[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]]'s ''[[Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]]'' and [[Edwin Arnold]]'s ''[[The Light of Asia]]'',{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|page=21}} Hamilton's characters dress more like nineteenth-century Turks than ancient Babylonians.{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|pages=22–23}} In the poem, Izdubar (the earlier misreading for the name "Gilgamesh") falls in love with Ishtar,{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|page=22}} but, then, "with hot and balmy breath, and trembling form aglow", she attempts to seduce him, leading Izdubar to reject her advances.{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|page=22}} Several "columns" of the book are devoted to an account of Ishtar's descent into the Underworld.{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|pages=22–23}} At the conclusion of the book, Izdubar, now a god, is reconciled with Ishtar in Heaven.{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|page=23}} In 1887, the composer [[Vincent d'Indy]] wrote ''Symphony Ishtar, variations symphonique, Op. 42'', a symphony inspired by the Assyrian monuments in the [[British Museum]].{{sfn|Pryke|2017|page=196}}
Inanna has become an important figure in modern [[feminist theory]] because she appears in the [[patriarchy|male-dominated]] [[Sumerian pantheon]],{{sfn|Pryke|2017|pages=196–197}} but is equally as powerful, if not more powerful than, the male deities she appears alongside.{{sfn|Pryke|2017|pages=196–197}} [[Simone de Beauvoir]], in her book ''[[The Second Sex]]'' (1949), argues that Inanna, along with other powerful female deities from antiquity, have been marginalized by modern culture in favor of male deities.{{sfn|Pryke|2017|page=196}} [[Tikva Frymer-Kensky]] has argued that Inanna was a "marginal figure" in Sumerian religion who embodies the "socially unacceptable" [[archetype]] of the "undomesticated, unattached woman".{{sfn|Pryke|2017|page=196}} Feminist author Johanna Stuckey has argued against this idea, pointing out Inanna's centrality in Sumerian religion and her broad diversity of powers, neither of which seem to fit the idea that she was in any way regarded as "marginal".{{sfn|Pryke|2017|page=196}} Assyriologist Julia M. Asher-Greve, who specializes in the study of position of women in antiquity, criticizes Frymer-Kensky's studies of Mesopotamian religion as a whole, highlighting the problems with her focus on fertility, the small selection of sources her works relied on, her view that position of goddesses in the pantheon reflected that of ordinary women in society (so-called "mirror theory"), as well as the fact her works do not accurately reflect the complexity of changes of roles of goddesses in religions of ancient Mesopotamia.{{sfn|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=25-26}} Ilona Zsolnay regards Frymer-Kensky's methodology as faulty.{{sfn|Zsolnay|2009|p=105}}