CHASING MYTHICAL BEASTS: The Reception of Ancient Monsters in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture by Katarzyna Marciniak

Abstract

Reviewed by: CHASING MYTHICAL BEASTS: The Reception of Ancient Monsters in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture by Katarzyna Marciniak Katarzyna Marciniak and Luisa Spang CHASING MYTHICAL BEASTS: The Reception of Ancient Monsters in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture. Edited by Katarzyna Marciniak. Series: Studien zur europäischen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur/Studies in European Children’s and Young Adult Literature (SEKL); 8. Universitätsverlag Winter, 2020, 623 pages. ISBN: 978-3-8253-69995-8 Everyone encounters monsters in their childhood. They fascinate and terrify us, but some also become our friends. All of them, regardless of whether they are good or evil, have something to teach us. This is the argument of the essay collection Chasing Mythical Beasts: The Reception of Ancient Monsters in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture, edited by Katarzyna Marciniak, which looks at monsters and beasts from Greek and Roman mythology and their reinterpretations in contemporary narratives for children and young adults. It analyzes their functions in these narratives as well as the way they are received by their audience. Its aim, as proclaimed by its editor, is “to offer some food for thought and encourage other researchers” (29). The collection brings together classical studies, theology, archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, media studies, and modern languages, and while its main focus lies on literature, it also includes essays on other media like film, animation, and comics. The works it discusses come, like its contributors, from different parts of the world and address various age groups. The content of the substantial volume is arranged into five parts and preceded by an introduction by Marciniak. In it, she offers a definition of (classical) monsters and gives an overview of the theory and practice of monster studies, or teratology. Part 1 of the collection is dedicated to the Minotaur, “the most famous monster of Greek mythology” (41). It comprises six essays analyzing the hybrid figure and its dual nature in various works, ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retellings of Greek myths for children, over other illustrated myth collections from the 1850s, contemporary British fiction for young adults, postmodern fantasy literature and film, to Matt Ottley’s multimedia picture-book Requiem for a Beast. Part 2 deals exclusively with female monsters, starting with Medusa, who is discussed in the first two essays: one looks at her relationship with Athena in Richard Woff’s Bright-Eyed Athena in the Stories of Ancient Greece, and the other analyzes how two popular teen novels use her as an analogy for stigmatized teenage girls. A third essay focuses on the Erinyes and their resuscitation in Philip Pullman’s Amber Spyglass, while the last two contributions in this section discuss the Sirens in Anna Czerwińska-Rydel’s Bałtycka syrena and in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Part 3 of the volume groups together “creatures of different kinds of equine component” (42), namely Pan, the centaurs, and Pegasus. Peter Pan is taken up again, now to investigate the figure of the Greek god, followed by two essays on centaurs: the first is interested in the centaur Cheiron, “the educator,” and his function in modern literature, whereas the second analyzes the reception of centaurs in Russian fairy tales. Finally, another two contributions [End Page 87] follow the trail of Pegasus through Polish children’s books from the 1960s and the 1980s and C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. The essays that make up part 4 are concerned with “the concept of monstrosity itself” (43), opening with an analysis of the beasts in N. D. Wilson’s Ashtown Burials. The two following contributions transport us to the African continent: the first describes mythical beasts in the oral tradition of Cameroon, while the second traces the wobo, a mythical creature from East Africa, in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s W pustyni i w puszczy and in its country of origin. Another article brings together marine monsters from Greek poetry and Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, followed by an essay on two Egyptian tales featuring fantastic creatures. Concluding this section are an analysis of the Wawel Dragon in Stanisław Pagaczewski’s tales for children and a discussion of J. K. Rowling’s fantastic beasts and their Greek heritage. Finally...