Adaptation

[hessenkat]

Hello all, I am new here!

I am in the third year of my BA (hons) degree in English. I have recently started a unit on adaptation and for this unit I have to do a 2500 word project on any adaptations I like (making up my own question/title etc). I could just do the generic Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew/ Ten Things I Hate About You, but I want to do something a bit different. Maybe not even use a novel/play as the source text. Has anyone got any ideas, my minds at a blank at the moment, and I am not wanting to use any of your ideas, I would just like some input as to what type of things I could do.

And also, the essay has to be extremely theory based, does anyone know any interesting theory based around the topic of adaptation?


Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thankyou!

[glover7]

Hello all, I am new here!

I am in the third year of my BA (hons) degree in English. I have recently started a unit on adaptation and for this unit I have to do a 2500 word project on any adaptations I like (making up my own question/title etc). I could just do the generic Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew/ Ten Things I Hate About You, but I want to do something a bit different. Maybe not even use a novel/play as the source text. Has anyone got any ideas, my minds at a blank at the moment, and I am not wanting to use any of your ideas, I would just like some input as to what type of things I could do.

And also, the essay has to be extremely theory based, does anyone know any interesting theory based around the topic of adaptation?


Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thankyou!

The theory we've been discussing in my lit theory class has less to do with adaptation and more to do with translation, but the connection is still relevant. Try searching for Walter Benjamin's Task of the Translator online. It basically details a messianic view of the confluence of all languages that is only really possible in the process of translation. You could try to develop a similar apocalyptic view of cultural amalgamation by way of temporal adaptation. Or something.

At least, that's what I'd attempt to do in your shoes.

[mal4mac]

Why not Canterbury Tales/Peter Ackroyd's 're-telling' of the Canterbury Tales?

Or Heaney's adaptation of Beowulf?

I.A. Richards adapted/simplified the Iliad to fit his literary theories -- and received much praise in certain quarters (e.g., the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Zlcg29QYnqMC)

Should modern authors be updating Old English Classics? Or should readers/students of English be expected to learn Old English? If so, how Old? Should they be allowed to adapt & translate, or should they *just* translate?

[OrphanPip]

Clueless and Jane Austen's Emma?

[Gustavo L.]

My Master's dissertation was on adaptation, but it's going to take a while till someone translates it into English. :rolleyes:

On theory and criticism I strongly recommend "Film Adaptation" by James Naremore and "On Intersemiotic Transposition", an essay by Claus Clüver published in "Poetics Today" (Duke University Press, 1989, v. 10)

My favorite comic book adaptation is Guido Crepax' Count Dracula (he adapted other novels too, but I consider this one his best).


Or Heaney's adaptation of Beowulf?
Seems quite good indeed, judging by the previews I've seen. I'll check this one next time I stop by Amazon.

[kelby_lake]

Shakespearean musical adaptations? The Boys From Syracuse (musical of The Comedy of errors), West Side Story (musical of Romeo and Juliet), and Kiss Me Kate (musical of The Taming of The Shrew).

[kasie]

How about taking a basic fairy tale - Cinderella, for example, and show how it is used in different situations, as iteself in The Glass Slipper or The Slipper and the Rose, or updated in Pretty Woman, for a start.

It is not an 'academic' book, but you may find Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots a useful reference book on 'variations on a theme'.

[mal4mac]

Other Shakespearean adaptations: King Lear/Kurosawa's Ran, The Tempest/Greenaway's Prospero's Books. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.

There are an endless number of Dickens adaptations! Maybe the most interesting are his own 'one man show' stage adaptations (reputed to have killed him.)

Something different - Tolstoy's adaptation of King Lear as 'performance art' to bring down the curtain on his own life...