Reading adaptations : novels and verse narratives on the stage, 1790-1840 / Philip Cox.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cox, Philip (Philip T.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English drama--19th century--History and criticism.

English drama.

Literature--Adaptations.

Literature.

Stage adaptations.

Popular culture--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Popular culture.

Great Britain.

History.

English poetry--Adaptations--19th century.

English fiction--Adaptations--19th century.

Local Subjects:

English poetry--Adaptations--19th century.

English fiction--Adaptations--19th century.

Physical Description:

vii, 184 p ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press : distributed exclusively in the USA by St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Summary:

Reading adaptations provides an original introduction to the widespread and extremely popular practice of stage adaptation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Through a series of specific case studies, the book offers readings of stage versions of works by writers such as William Godwin, Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, establishing important new contexts within which to view the production and reception of the period's canonical literature. The plays engage with the original texts' treatment of issues such as social and political justice, the construction of individual and national identity or the emergence of the professional writer but, simultaneously, they address these issues from a distinctly different perspective. Adaptations thus created both a literal and metaphorical site for public debate about a text's meaning and significance and, taken as a whole, the plays discussed within the present study allow a unique insight into the development of modern distinctions between 'literary' and 'popular' culture. The book's argument demonstrates the significance of theatrical adaptation for an improved understanding of the cultural complexity of the Romantic period, and rediscovers a fascinating but critically neglected area of literary production.

Contents:

Introduction: Adaptation and the ideologies of genre 1

Chapter 1 Caleb Williams and The Iron Chest 25

Chapter 2 'Another and the same': repetition and representation in adaptations of Scott's The Lady of the Lake 44

Chapter 3 Adapting the national myth: stage versions of Scott's Ivanhoe 77

Chapter 4 The professional writer: adaptations of Dickens's early novels 121

Conclusion: Reading adaptations 163.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0719053404 hbk

0719053412 pbk

OCLC:

43901345