Among all the works that the literary canon designates as "classics," the works of Francois Rabelais are certainly among those that were most, and for the longest time, censured and transformed by adapters and commentators. / Literature for young readers, an ensemble of texts whose boundaries are defined by the target readership, is a veritable small industry which, having received a boost right after the Second World War, has not stopped growing since 1945. Nonetheless, the practice of adapting classical works in order to make them "accessible" for children has been current since the 19th century. / The adaptations for young readers of Rabelais's Gargantua have been at the intersection of these two phenomena. Censorship is not practiced today like it was at the time of this father of French letters. Nevertheless, the process of adapting a literary work for young readers still consists of suppressing passages in the text, modifying the narrative structure, and adding a significant paratext. Adaptation may also simplify the language, eliminate discrepancies, transform the narrator's point of view, etc. / We have, thus, analyzed significant modifications in four versions of Gargantua adapted for young readers, in order to identify the goals that led to the rewriting of the text. In particular, we have turned our attention to three of these goals: "concern for the young reader's amusement and distraction", "concern for the young reader's education" and "preservation of the young reader's innocence". We have found that five means have been used in order to reach these goals: "adding a paratext", "abridgement of the text", "purification of the language", "simplification of the narrative voice" and "simplification of the language".
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.79747 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Boileau, Julie |
| Contributors | Desrosiers-Bonin, Diane (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Département de langue et littérature françaises.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001985373, proquestno: AAIMQ88621, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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