adaptation

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 story from another work, adapted into a film (it may be a novel, non-fiction like journalism, autobiography, comic books, scriptures, plays or historical sources). Literary adaptation, a story from a literary source, adapted into another work. A novelization is a story from another work, adapted into a novel. Theatrical adaptation, 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 of adaptation studies reflect these expansions 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." History of adaptation The practice of adaptation was common in ancient Greek culture, for instance in adapting myths and narratives for the stage (Aeschylus, Sophocles' and Euripides' adaptations of Homer). William 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 An Essay on Criticism: