Classical Reception and the Rewriting Turn in Contemporary Women's Fiction
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10433/25083
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Publication Classical Reception and the Rewriting Turn in Contemporary Women’s Fiction(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Moreno Soldevila, Rosario, ed.; Nisa Cáceres, Daniel, ed.'Classical Reception and the Rewriting Turn in Contemporary Women’s Fiction' gathers diverse scholarly contributions to the field of classical reception studies, particularly focusing on the revitalisation and reimagining of mythological narratives in contemporary fiction by Anglophone women writers, including Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker, Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood, Natalie Haynes, Emily Hauser, Rosie Hewlett and Madeline Miller. These authors engage with ancient myths not as fixed narratives or sources of inspiration, but as dynamic texts that reflect and shape the evolving concerns of modern feminist thought. By reimagining figures such as Clytemnestra, Andromache, Medusa and Penelope, these writers craft new spaces for female subjectivity, relational dynamics, sorority, agency and resistance, contributing to an ongoing reconfiguration of gendered identities and societal values. The works explored in this volume are not mere literary revisions; they represent acts of reclamation, offering nuanced readings of myth that speak to the pressing issues of our time—gender inequality, sexual violence and war, ecological justice and the power of storytelling itself. The volume opens with a theoretical introduction defining and contextualising this movement as the 'rewriting turn', the last chapter proper being a study of female-authored retellings in the Spanish literary polysystem that invites scholars and readers into a global dialogue about the role of women writers in mythmaking. The book is rounded off by an interview with Emily Hauser—writer and classical scholar. Together, the chapters in this volume highlight the transformative—even regenerative—power of classical reception in contemporary women’s writing.Publication Breaking Boundaries, Broadening Horizons: An Interview with Emily Hauser on the Reception of Classics(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Domínguez-González, GemaThe following pages present the adapted transcript of an interview with Dr Emily Hauser, recorded at the University of Exeter on 25 July 2025 and available on the YouTube channel 'Diálogo con las diosas'. The conversation explores the reception of Greek mythology in contemporary fiction and how these retellings—particularly those centred on women—are able to reshape traditional narratives by addressing questions of gender and collective memory. Drawing on her 'Golden Apple' trilogy (2016–2018) and 'Mythica' (2025), Hauser recalls her experience as an author and a scholar and reflects on the mutually enriching dialogue that exists between scholarship and creative writing.Publication Women-Authored Retellings of the Classical Tradition: A Critical Survey of Scholarship and the Literary Polysystem in Spain(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Cisneros Perales, MiguelGrounded in the new outward turn in Translation Studies, Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory, and Genette’s palimpsests and paratextual theory, this study examines the most recent Spanish critical reception of women-authored narrative rewritings of the classical tradition, with a focus on understanding how these works are classified or positioned in the Spanish literary system. Furthermore, Spanish translations of the novels under examination, as well as original Spanish-language texts, are traced to outline the current publishing landscape and examine how they are categorised. The ultimate aim is to present an overview of women-authored retellings of the classical tradition and their reception in twenty-first-century Spain, evaluating possible editorial and critical trends, as well as tools for their analysis. The results may also prove useful for the study of these texts within other polysystems, offering comparative insights into their adaptation, circulation and reception across different literary and cultural contexts.Publication Autodiegesis and Relationality: Tracing Penelope in Margaret Atwood, Madeline Miller and Natalie Haynes(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Cuevas Caballero, Marta C.; Velasco-Montiel, CarmenFirst given literary form in Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope has long embodied the ideal of a prudent, cautious, patient and faithful woman: the perfect wife. However, the incorporation of gender perspectives into literature and classical reception studies has recently contested this characterisation, reinterpreting her story and granting her a more prominent voice—one that is even critical of her own narrative. Three central examples can be found in recent Anglophone fiction: Margaret Atwood’s 'The Penelopiad' (2005), Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018) and Natalie Haynes’ 'A Thousand Ships' (2019). This chapter explores how these retellings present Penelope as a woman who reflects on her own story, both through her recollection and experience of the events of her life and through her relationships with other characters. In doing so, both autodiegesis and relationality emerge as central dimensions of her fulfilment, underlining the possibilities of female agency. Together, these narratives construct a Penelope that challenges the contours of her personal myth and engages with contemporary gender debates.Publication The Monster’s Gaze Disrupting the Male Gaze: Trauma, Gender and Feminist Mythmaking in Rosie Hewlett’s 'Medusa'(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Burguillos Capel, MaríaThis chapter examines Rosie Hewlett’s novel 'Medusa' (2021) as a contemporary feminist reimagining that reclaims the myth of Medusa through a survivor-centred lens. Hewlett’s retelling, aimed at a younger and broader readership, aligns with the discourse of the current feminist wave by foregrounding themes of sexual violence, narrative agency and symbolic resistance. The novel reframes the youngest of the Gorgon sisters, once cast as a Freudian figure of male fear, as an emblem of what Hélène Cixous identified as 'écriture féminine': a voice reclaiming power through self-narration. Hewlett also reconceives Perseus as an embodiment of deconstructed masculinity, shaped by inherited trauma and empathy rather than heroic conquest. By analysing both the narrative’s accessibility and its engagement with structural and symbolic violence, this study finally argues for Hewlett’s contribution to the evolving project of feminist mythmaking and its genealogy of female mythmakers.Publication Female Survival in the Trojan Aftermath: Andromache in the Fiction of Pat Barker and Natalie Haynes(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Domínguez-González, GemaIn both the archaic epic tradition and classical tragedy, Andromache stood with Penelope as a prime exemplar of feminine areté. Though classical reception has long favoured Penelope, Andromache’s marginalisation has been particularly persistent in contemporary women-authored rewritings of the classical tradition. This chapter examines Pat Barker’s 'The Silence of the Girls' (2018) and 'The Women of Troy' (2021), as well as Natalie Haynes’ A 'Thousand Ships' (2019), to determine whether Andromache’s portrayal in the tragedies resonates with modern readers. In this chapter, a dialogue is thus fostered between Greek tragedy and modern myth retellings to explore themes of identities in transition, trauma and agency, thereby unravelling Andromache’s adaptation in modern literature.Publication Eco-Refiguration, Vengeance and Feminine Sovereignty: Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood’s 'Clytemnestra: The Mother’s Blade'(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Sánchez Gayoso, HelenaThis chapter contributes to classical reception in contemporary women’s writing by examining the revisionist approach of Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood towards the classical hypotexts that shape the myth of Clytemnestra in 'The Mother’s Blade' (2017). The authors refigure Clytemnestra’s vengeance as an ecofeminist imperative, setting her actions within a tripartite framework of archetypal womanhood—maiden, mother and queen, each element being associated with a distinct aspect of the Great Goddess (Potnia) of the Late Bronze Age Aegean. In this context, Agamemnon’s death is reimagined as a multifaceted act of justice addressing ecological harm, maternal grief and the erosion of feminine sovereignty. To analyse this process, I introduce the term eco-refiguration, which I coin here to designate a critical framework that captures the authors’ revisionist mode—one that sustains a reconciliatory engagement with the classical sources while also reconfiguring them through interwoven systems of care, resistance and ecological justice.Publication Women, the Classics and the Rewriting Turn in the Twenty-First Century(Roma Tre Press / Enredars - UPO, 2025-11-24) Nisa Cáceres, Daniel; Moreno Soldevila, RosarioThese introductory pages contextualise the chapters of the collective volume 'Classical Reception and the Rewriting Turn in Contemporary Women’s Fiction' within the broader phenomenon of twenty-first-century, female-authored engagements with the classics. The phrase the rewriting turn is introduced here to capture this critical juncture in contemporary thought, as well as in cultural, literary and publishing trends. Writers such as Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker, Emily Hauser, Natalie Haynes and Madeline Miller, among others, approach classical texts not only as sources of creative inspiration but also as sites of critique and social intervention. By engaging with wider societal debates about women’s voices in literature, politics and culture, these works ultimately interrogate entrenched power structures in ways that resonate with ongoing feminist discourse and address the pressing concerns of our times.