Retelling

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The process of narrating a story again entails presenting the original narrative with fresh insights and possibly altering its perspective
2. Recounting a previously told tale involves introducing variations and personal interpretations to engage the audience in a new way
3. The act of narrating a story anew involves reinterpretation of the original content while maintaining its essential elements and possibly updating its themes

Etymology: "Retelling" is the present participle and gerund of "retell", so the history belongs to the verb. "Retell" is simply "re-" attached to "tell", and the prefix is the part with the longer ancestry. It descends from Latin "re-", meaning "back" or "again", which passed through Old French "re-" into Middle English as "re-" and joined the native English verb "tell" to form "retell". The combination is transparent: to tell something back, or to tell it once more. Because "tell" is an ancient Germanic word with a sense of counting and recounting, "retell" carries that sense of going over the same ground again. The process the meaning describes, giving a story a second telling with new emphasis, is exactly what the parts promise.

Synonyms: recounting, narration