{"id":4222,"date":"2025-10-22T09:56:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/?p=4222"},"modified":"2025-11-21T10:24:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:24:17","slug":"something-old-something-new-modern-retellings-reimaginings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/2025\/10\/22\/something-old-something-new-modern-retellings-reimaginings\/","title":{"rendered":"Something Old, Something New: Modern Retellings & Reimaginings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like most young children, I went through various periods of media obsession, including a Disney princess phase and later a <\/span>Percy Jackson and the Olympians <\/span><\/i>phase. My love of tales like <\/span>Beauty and the Beast <\/span><\/i>and interest in the aspects of Greek mythology explored in Rick Riordan\u2019s beloved mid-2000s series grew into a long-standing fascination with stories that get retold and reimagined. I always liked to imagine myself as a princess, a heroine in a world of magic, and contemporary retellings of classic tales only made that kind of power and heroism seem more likely. From dressing up as a princess for Halloween just about every year from ages 3 to 10 to taking Buzzfeed quizzes about what Greco-Roman godly parent I would have (Athena, though I answered the very obvious questions with the intention of getting this result), my interest evolved into reading collections of myths and folktales around the world and constantly being disturbed by the non-Disney-ified versions of the classics. My fascination was well-enough known in the family that my nephew, only seven at the time, picked out a book of African folktales for me at a library book sale without my input. Admittedly, he probably just recognized the word \u201ctale\u201d and little else, but I was happy nonetheless.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides <\/span>Percy Jackson<\/span><\/i>, which follows a twelve-year-old boy with a relatively normal life who discovers he\u2019s the descendant of a powerful Greek god, my first encounter with a true retelling was <\/span>The Lunar Chronicles<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Marissa Meyer\u2019s series puts a science fiction spin on the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White that features cyborgs, a lunar plague spread to Earth,\u00a0 genetically modified soldiers, and a civilization on the moon, while keeping the original bones of the stories. I devoured these books the summer before 8th grade, and haven\u2019t stopped picking up fairytale, folktale, or mythological retellings since. Luckily, this has been easy enough to manage, because it seems I\u2019m not the only one with this interest. Fairytale and mythological retellings have become something of a commercial and literary subgenre, ranging from close retellings to stories that draw loose inspiration from mythos and lore. <\/span><\/p>\n

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@bnplymouthmtg<\/a> <\/p>\n

This is our current mythology display in store! #bookselling204<\/a> #barnesandnoble<\/a> #books<\/a> #booktok<\/a> #booksellers<\/a> #bookseller<\/a> #endcap<\/a> #mythology<\/a><\/p>\n

\u266c Achilles Come Down – Gang of Youths<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n