Adaptation Studies: Webseries and Intertextuality

Two recent theses dealing with Brontë adaptations/variations:

An Evolution of Jane and Lizzie: Adaptation Studies Need to Accommodate for the Rise of Internet-Based Media
by Katherine Anne Bryce
The University of Vermont, 2019

Adaptation studies have been a part of film studies since the beginning of cinema itself. However, there is a need for a push in a new direction to incorporate and acknowledge internet-based, web-series adaptations. The purpose of this paper was to come to terms with the current status of adaptation studies as a field and to determine how to best incorporate internet-based media into the previously established framework. Combining a study of adaptation studies with a study of transmedia and the specificities of internet-based media, I looked at two web-series adaptations of classic novels: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and The Autobiography of Jane Eyre, an adaptation of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Using these two case studies, I outlined the distinctive characteristics of web-series adaptations - their benefits and their drawbacks - as a means of showing how adaptation studies could benefit from an expansion to incorporate the new media our technology is producing.

Riscrivere Jane Austen e le sorelle Brontë: Emma Tennant e il romanzo intertestuale
by Marinella Ferri
Università degli Estudi di Modena et Reggio Emilia, 2019

The aim of this work is to investigate the main characteristics of the “intertextual novel”, adapting the famous definition of Gèrard Genette, through an analysis of some novels by the contemporary Scottish author Emma Tennant. In particular, we will focus our attention on her rewritings of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, each of them exemplifying a particular type of intertextuality. The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first one will present the different kinds of intertextuality, while the other two will discuss Tennant's works. The theoretical frame of the thesis is informed by Gérard Genette’s notion of transtextuality, in particular the categories defined as intertextuality and hypertextuality. In postmodernism, they are very popular practices, and they are also used by Tennant, who, like other contemporary writers, resorts to textual strategies such as pastiche, sequel and forgery. In the first part of the Nineties, Tennant rewrote various novels by Jane Austen. This dissertation will analyze Pemberley, A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice (1993) and Emma in Love, Jane Austen's Emma Continued (1996). The first one is a sequel of the famous novel of Austen; the narration begins one year after the conclusion of the hypotextual story and it is set during the Christmas period in Pemberley. Tennant uses the main characters of Pride and Prejudice with their main characteristics; for example, Elizabeth Bennett is, once again, victim of prejudice and Mr Wickham plays the role of the villain. In Tennant’s novel the House of Pemberley is like a stage on which all the characters have their moments to appear. In the sequel of Emma, Tennant maintains the original plot, which once again has at its core a capricious heroine who, in this case, never achieves her maturity, not even at the end of the novel. We see the new heroine organizing a marriage between her brother-in-law Mr John Knightley and Miss Jane Fairfax, until she meets an enigmatic French Woman who creates in her a lot of curiosity. The third part of this work examines Tennant’s rewritings of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Tennant's aim is to give voice to minor characters of the hypotexts. Heathcliff's Tale (2005) and Thornfield Hall (2006) are composed by complex narrative structures and different versions of the same story. For example, in Heathcliff's Tale the narration is given in Chinese boxes all linked together by the figure of the editor. In Thornfield Hall the author gives voices to different characters who narrate the story following Brontë's hypotext but adding new parts.