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After Adaptation. Altered Reading Processes of Adapted Texts
Jannis Engelen
ISBN 978-3-8325-5932-8
253 pages, year of publication: 2026
price: 41.50 €
Examining the interactions between readers, adaptations, and adapted texts, the study investigates how reading an adaptation can affect a subsequent reading of the corresponding adapted text. To demonstrate how the reading process of an adapted text may be altered by a reading of an adaptation, four pairs of adaptations and adapted texts were analyzed using a theoretical framework, which combines adaptation theory and reader-response theory. The focus of this analysis was put on the characters and themes of these texts and how the displays in the adaptation may then influence readers’ perception, interpretation, and understanding of these characters and themes.
For instance, the study investigates how Jane Smiley’s adaptation A Thousand Acres may affect readers’ perception of Goneril, Regan, and Lear from William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Similarly, Charlotte Brontë’s Bertha and Rochester from Jane Eyre may be viewed quite differently after experiencing the backstory Jean Rhys creates for Bertha in her adaptation Wide Sargasso Sea. Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed and Marina Warner’s Indigo were also analyzed as adaptations of Shakespeare’s The Tempest to round out the analysis.
Based on the analysis of these specific texts, several factors that affect how much reading an adaptation can influence the reading process of the adapted text are identified to provide a more general understanding of the interactions between readers, adaptations, and adapted texts.
