A Theory of Adaptation Quotes

“Neither the product nor the process of adaptation exists in a vacuum:
they all have a context—a time and a place, a society and a culture.”
― Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation

“First, seen as a formal entity or product, an adaptation is an announced and extensive transposition of a particular work or works. This “transcoding” can involve a shift of medium (a poem to a film) or genre (an epic to a novel), or a change of frame and therefore context: telling the same story from a different point of view, for instance, can create a manifestly different interpretation. Transposition can also mean a shift in ontology from the real to the fictional, from a historical account or biography to a fictionalized narrative or drama. [...]
Second, as a process of creation, the act of adaptation always involves both (re-)interpretation and then (re-)creation; this has been called both appropriation and salvaging, depending on your perspective. [...]
Third, seen from the perspective of its process of reception, adaptation is a form of intertextuality: we experience adaptations (as adaptations) as palimpsests through our memory of other works that resonate through repetition with variation.”
― Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation

“Adaptation is repetition, but repetition without replication.”
― Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation

“Although adaptations are also aesthetic objects in their own right, it is only as inherently double or multilaminated works that they can be theorized as adaptations.
An adaptation’s double nature does not mean, however, that proximity or fidelity to the adapted text should be the criterion of judgment or the focus of analysis.”
― Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation

“[T]here must be something particularly appealing about adaptations as adaptations.
Part of this pleasure, I want to argue, comes simply from repetition with variation, from the comfort of ritual combined with the piquancy of surprise. Recognition and remembrance are part of the pleasure (and risk) of experiencing an adaptation; so too is change.”
― Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation

“And there is yet another possibility: our interest piqued, we may actually read or see that so-called original after we have experienced the adaptation, thereby challenging the authority of any notion of priority. Multiple versions exist laterally, not vertically.”
― Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation

“One lesson is that to be second is not to be secondary or inferior; likewise, to be first is not to be originary or authoritative. Yet, as we shall see, disparaging opinions on adaptation as a secondary mode—belated and therefore derivative—persist. One aim of this book is to challenge that denigration.”
― Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation