In my latest post over at Spot-on, I ask:What compels a novelist to try to retell another writer's story? I can imagine a number of reasons to take as one's inspiration a well-known story, including: as an homage, as a goof or a spoof, to expose the ideological or political underpinnings of the original work, or simply because the earlier story is so good that mimicking it is irresistible.From there I ramble on about a number of my favorite examples of twice-told tales, including recycled stories based on works by Homer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Kate Chopin, William Golding, and others.
Check it out.
--Marshal Zeringue
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