Having set down my pipe to giggle helplessly.... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] You guys are nuts. Good nuts, mind you, but a nut by any other name.....
Really, though, excellent questions, Kuruharan.
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Is there a possibility that the meanings and themes of the original work would not translate across that barrier?
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if the author puts his own gloss on the story is it still true(ish) to the original?
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I think Tolkien is about as good an example of achieving both as one can find anywhere. Though he may not have achieved his original goal of creating a myth for England, he did adapt Scandinavian (dwarves), Celtic (elves), and other Norse legendary and mythical ingredients to a modern audience's mental framework, and definitely brought his own themes to the work, themes that the author of Beowulf, the teller of the oral traditions, Mallory, and all the rest, could not have, would not have brought, precisely because they were not Tolkien, and because they had no idea what the 20th century was like. This is only a partial answer, leaving you to do a lot of filling in the blanks in terms of examples, but I gotta run. Happy farcing! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]