230627 Literary Adaptations: Screening the Canon (S) (WiSe 2008/2009)

From its beginning, film has been "hungry" for stories, and adaptations of literary texts were among the first films ever produced. The classics of the literary canon continue to be adapted and re-adapted for film today. The relationship between the canon and film has been twofold:

One the one hand, the names of renowned writers and famous works have lent some of their cultural prestige to the popular medium of film, on the other, the mass appeal of film has helped to keep the literary works adapted within cultural awareness, reinforcing their canonical status.

But the canon does not remain unaffected by media transfer, for every adaptation is also a re-interpretation, and sometimes a full re-writing, of the text. In this seminar we will read the texts first and then analyse one or more film versions in order to study the aesthetic, social and ideological principles of literary adaptation. We will also discuss the theoretical implications of the processes of canon-formation.

Please buy your own copy of

William Shakespeare, King Richard III.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
E.M. Forster, Howards End

Make sure you buy a good annotated edition of the texts, i.e. the Arden or Oxford editions in the case of Shakespeare, and the Penguin Classics or Oxford World Classics (not any "Popular Classics" series) in the case of the novels.

Please note that four or five extra film-viewing sessions will be held (dates to be agreed upon by the participants of the course).