Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio and Print(French and Francophone Studies)

This book uses six canonical novelists and their recreations in a variety of media to argue a reconceptualisation of our approach to the study of adaptation. The works of Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant and Verne reveal themselves not as originals to be defended from adapting hands, but as works fashioned from the adapted voices of a host of earlier artists, moments and media. The text analyses reworkings of key nineteenth-century texts across time and media in order to emphasise the way in which such reworkings cast new light on many of their source texts, and how they reveal the probing analysis nineteenth-century novelists undertake in relation to notions of originality and authorial borrowing. Adapting Nineteenth-Century France charts such revision through a range of genres encompassing the modern media of radio, silent film, fiction, musical theatre, sound film and television. Contents Introduction, Kate Griffiths I Labyrinths of Voices: Emile Zola, Germinal and Radio, Kate Griffiths II Diamond Thieves and Gold Diggers: Balzac, Silent Cinema and the Spoils of Adaptation, Andrew Watts III Fragmented Fictions: Time, Textual Memory and the (Re)Writing of Madame Bovary, Andrew Watts IV Les Miserables, Theatre and the Anxiety of Excess, Andrew Watts V Chez Maupassant: The (In)Visible Space of Television Adaptation, Kate Griffiths VI Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours: Verne, Todd, Coraci and the Spectropoetics of Adaptation, Kate Griffiths Conclusion, Andrew Watts

Table of Contents:
Introduction Kate Griffiths I Labyrinths of Voices: Emile Zola, Germinal and Radio Kate Griffiths II Diamond Thieves and Gold Diggers: Balzac, Silent Cinema and the Spoils of Adaptation Andrew Watts III Fragmented Fictions: Time, Textual Memory and the (Re)Writing of Madame Bovary Andrew Watts IV Les Miserables, Theatre and the Anxiety of Excess Andrew Watts V Chez Maupassant: The (In)Visible Space of Television Adaptation Kate Griffiths VI Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours: Verne, Todd, Coraci and the Spectropoetics of Adaptation Kate Griffiths Conclusion Andrew Watts

About the Author :
Kate Griffiths is a Lecturer in French and Translation at Cardiff University, specialising in multi-media adaptation. Andrew Watts is Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on adaptations of nineteenth-century prose fiction, with special reference to the work of Honore de Balzac.

Review :
"Griffiths and Watts break new ground in their invigorated intermedial exploration of the adaptive afterlives of leading nineteenth-century French novelists. This significant contribution traverses literary criticism, adaptation studies, and media studies, bringing compelling insights, not least in the rarely studied areas of radio and television adaptation."--Susan Harrow, University of Bristol "In this volume, key literary works are situated within a highly active network of diverse impulses that extend the critical focus beyond the usual concern of scholars. . . . This major study attentively probes the multimedia and multifaceted dynamics of adaption."--Bradley Stephens, University of Bristol "Adapting Nineteenth-Century France throws into relief the profoundly intertextual debate on the nature of authorship itself at play between these key writers and some of the best of the adaptations made of them." "The case study authors underline that in adaptation, true artistry may be found."-- "SirReadaLot.org"