An adaptation is a transfer of a work of art from one style, culture or medium to another. Some common examples are: *

Film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

, a story from another work, adapted into a

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

(it may be a novel, non-fiction like journalism, autobiography, comic books, scriptures, plays or historical sources) *

Literary adaptation Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source (e.g. a novel, short story, poem) to another genre or medium, such as a film, stage play, or video game. It can also involve adapting the same literary work in the same genre or medium ju ...

, a story from a literary source, adapted into another work. A

novelization A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of ...

is a story from another work, adapted into a novel. *

Theatrical adaptation In a theatrical adaptation, material from another artistic medium, such as a novel or a film is re-written according to the needs and requirements of the theatre and turned into a play or musical. Elision and interpolation Directors must make ar ...

, a story from another work, adapted into a play

Types of adaptation

There is no end to potential media involved in adaptation. Adaptation might be seen as a special case of intertextuality or intermediality, which involves the practice of transcoding (changing the code or 'language' used in a medium) as well as the assimilation of a work of art to other cultural, linguistic, semiotic, aesthetic or other norms. Recent approaches to the expanding field Adaptation Studies reflect these expansion of our perspective. Adaptation occurs as a special case of intertextual and intermedial exchange and the copy-paste culture of digital technologies has produced "new intertextual forms engendered by emerging technologies—mashups, remixes, reboots, samplings, remodelings, transformations— " that "further develop the impulse to adapt and appropriate, and the ways in which they challenge the theory and practice of adaptation and appropriation." Th
Association of Adaptation Studies
was founded with a view to advancing research into adaptation in the arts.

History of adaptation

The practice of adaptation was common in ancient Greek culture, for instance in adapting myths and narratives for the stage (Aischylus', Sophocles' and Euripides' adaptations of Homer). Shakespeare was an arch adaptor as nearly all of his plays are heavily dependent on pre-existing sources. Prior to Romantic notions of originality, copying classic authors was seen as a key aesthetic practice in Western culture. This neoclassical paradigm was expressed by Alexander Pope who equated the copying of Homer with copying nature in his "Essay on Criticism": "And but from Nature's fountains scorned to draw;
But when to examine every part he came,
Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design,
And rules as strict his labored work confine
As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line.
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy Nature is to copy them.""An Essay on Criticism" lines 133-140 According to Pope, again in his "Essay on Criticism", the task of a writer was to vary existing ideas: "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;". In the 19th century, many European nations sought to re-discover and adapt medieval narratives that might be harnessed to various kinds of nationalist causes.

Types of adaptation

History of adaptation

See also

References

Further reading