The thesis is concerned with British television classic-novel adaptations and their cultural significance. It interrogates at some length the arguments of comparative theorists and critics, and examines the implicit presumptions and conceptualisations that have determined their various influential approaches. The thesis develops an alternative understanding of these programmes, explicitly resisting a traditional comparative approach, and instead exploring a genre and the broader textual, cultural and social discourses within which it exists. The texts are conceived as sites of interplay between discourses about the past, the present, television and, reflexively, the genre itself, and are explored through close textual analysis that focuses on these concerns. British television classic-novel adaptations establish a generic microcosm that can be identified by its characteristic tropes of content (in particular, representations of the past), style and mood(s). Traditionally, this microcosm has been justifiably associated with nostalgia; however, whilst the nostalgic mode is still prevalent, generic development and the influence of (post)modern cultural discourses have resulted in the possibility of a wider range of meanings and consequent interpretations. In addition, classic-novel adaptations are necessarily and problematically situated within the context of the televisual, and the televisual context has impacted upon the genre's identity and development. The thesis elucidates the specificity of the televisual - highlighting its 'presentness', 'performativity', and intertextuality. The salience of a limited range of theories of the postmodern to the proffered conceptualisations of televisuality and (post)nostalgia is indicated. Informed by detailed conceptualisations of postmodern nostalgia and the televisual, the genre is examined textually, contextually and intertextually. The thesis therefore aims to reconfigure the theoretical assumptions behind the study of adaptation and propose an alternative conceptual and interpretative framework, grounding the study in detailed discussion of adaptations made in Britain over a twenty-year period (1980s and 1990s).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:392081 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Cardwell, Sarah Elizabeth Fleur |
| Publisher | Royal Holloway, University of London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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