About the Book
From their first appearance in print, Dickens's fictions immediately migrated into other media, and particularly, in his own time, to the stage. Since then Dickens has continuously, apparently inexhaustibly, functioned as the wellspring for a robust mini-industry, sourcing plays, films, television specials and series, operas, new novels and even miniature and model villages. If in his lifetime he was justly called 'The Inimitable', since his death he has become just the reverse: the Infinitely Imitable. The essays in this volume, all appearing within the past twenty years, cover the full spectrum of genres. Their major shared claim to attention is their break from earlier mimetic criteria - does the film follow the novel? - to take the new works seriously within their own generic and historical contexts. Collectively, they reveal an entirely 'other' Dickensian oeuvre, which ironically has perhaps made Dickens better known to an audience of non-readers than to those who know the books themselves.
Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction; Part I On Adaptation: Adaptation studies at a crossroads, Thomas Leitch; Creative criticism: adaptation, performative writing and the problem of objectivity, Mary Poovey. Part II Screen (Large): Word and image: the articulation and visualization of power in Great Expectations, Jane Baston; Dickens in Denmark: four Danish versions of his novels, Graham Petrie; A weirdo, a rat, and a humbug: the literary qualities of The Muppet Christmas Carol, Hugh H. Davis; Cinematic Dickens and uncinematic words, Kamilla Elliott; Dickens, Eisenstein, film, Garrett Stewart; Historical picturesque: adapting Great Expectations and Sense and Sensibility, Susan Johnston; Dickensian orphan as child star: Freddie Bartholomew and the commodity of cute in MGM's David Copperfield, Scott Balcerzak; Fagin, the Holocaust, and mass culture; or, Oliver Twist on screen, Juliet John; Not telling the story the way it happened: Alfonso Cuarón's Great Expectations, Michael K. Johnson; Insurrection and Depression-era politics in Selznik's A Tale of Two Cities, Jason W. Stevens; Dickens from a postmodern perspective: Alfonso Cuarón's Great Expectations for Generation X, Shari Hodges Holt; 'I'm a wild success': postmodern Dickens/Victorian Cuarón, Ana Moya and Gemma López; 'Please sir, I want some more': Clive Donner's Marxist adaptation of Oliver Twist, Shari Hodges Holt; From book to film: the semiotics of Jewishness in Oliver Twist, Maria Cristina Paganoni. Part III Screen (Small): The never-ending story? Two Martin Chuzzlewits, Tore Rem; Writing after Dickens: the television writer's art, John Romano; Nicholas Nickleby, adaptation, rehearsal and catharsis, Luc Bouvard; 'La television des professeurs?' Charles Dickens, French public service television and Oliver Twist, Pamela Atzori; Queer beauty: illness, illegitimacy and visibility in Dickens's Bleak House and its 2005 BBC adaptation, Rachel Carroll; 'I have been true to you, upon my guilty soul I have': negotiating Nancy, 'hyperauthenticity' and 'hyperfidelity' in the 2007 BBC adaptation of Oliver Twist, Benjamin Poore. Part IV Stage: Reading, reciting, acting, Malcolm Andrews; Reading Victorian illusions: Dickens's Haunted Man and Dr Pepper's 'ghost', Helen Groth; The death of Nancy 'Sikes', 1838-1912, Sue Zemka; 'Can a fellow be a villain all his life?': Oliver!, Fagin and performing Jewishness, Sharon Aronofsky Weltman. Part V Page: Heritage in Peter Carey's Jack Maggs, Colette Selles; Missed encounters: repetition, rewriting and contemporary returns to Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, Ankhi Mukherjee; The 'crooked business' of storytelling: authorship and cultural revisionism in Peter Carey's Jack Maggs, Laura E. Savu; Discovering new pasts: Victorian legacies in the postcolonial worlds of Jack Maggs and Mister Pip, Beverly Taylor; Name index.
About the Author :
John J. Glavin is Professor of English and Director of the Gervase Programs, Georgetown University, USA Thomas Leitch, Mary Poovey, Jane Baston, Graham Petrie, Hugh H. Davis, Kamilla Elliott, Garrett Stewart, Susan Johnston, Scot Balcerzak, Juliet John, Michael K. Johnson, Jason W. Stevens, Shari Hodges Holt, Ana Moya, Gemma Lopez, Maria Cristina, Tore Rem, John Romano, Luc Bouvard, Pamela Atzori, Rachel Carroll, Benjamin Poore, Malcolm Andrews, Helen Groth, Sue Zemka, Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, Colette Selles, Anki Mukherjee, Laura E. Savu, Beverly Taylor.
Review :
’...a rich collection of previously published papers...In his introduction, Glavin provides the reader with a unifying theoretical framework...’ Dickens Quarterly
