Literary Terms - Adaptation

Literary Terms, Adaptation,

Literary Terms - Adaptation

Adaptation:

1. A re-rendering of a work originally written in one GENRE or medium into another genre or medium; for example, the adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's HISTORICAL NOVEL “The Bride of Lammermoor” into Gaetano Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor, the adaptation of Shirley Jackson's SHORT STORY “The Lottery” into a stage play, or the adaptation of E. M. Forster's NOVEL “A Passage to India” into a movie.

2. A TRANSLATION from one language to another that derives its inspiration from the original work-retaining the general features of PLOT, CHARACTERS, and TONE-but that is essentially a rewriting

See also:

GENRE,

TRANSLATION.

Adaptation: (from Penguin Dictionary)

Broadly speaking, the re-casting of work in. one medium to fit another, such as the re-casting of novels and plays as film or television scripts. For example, Stephen Hero, A Passage to India,  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Les Liaisons dangereuses as stage  plays; The Forsyte Saga, Daniel Deronda, War and Peace, Brideshead  Revisited, and The Jewel in the Crown as television dramas.  Sometimes a cycle or sequence is adapted: for instance, the dramatization (q.v.) of some of the Canterbury Tales as a musical comedy (1967). Short stories and poems are often equally suitable. As an extension, there are works like the TV version of Peyton Place and Colditz of which episodes continued to be presented long after the original stories had been used up.