Re-imagining Nineteenth-Century Literature

Wedi cwblhau'r modiwl dylai'r myfyrwyr fedru:

1. Demonstrate awareness of different approaches to adaptation and the ability to analyse the choices authors have made and/ or to analyse the choices they themselves have made as authors.
2. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the ideological work of literature and the cultural values involved in adaptation.
3. Demonstrate knowledge of nineteenth-century fiction and an ability to relate texts to relevant historical, generic and cultural contexts.
4. Structure effective comparative textual analyses, either in a critical essay or a commentary on their own creative work.
5. Demonstrate critical and interpretative skills appropriate to Level 1 and deploy an appropriate critical vocabulary.

This module focuses on three canonical nineteenth-century texts that have been adapted multiple times: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. For each text we will focus on one adaptation that exemplifies a particular approach to reimagining literary texts. Gurinder Chadha’s Bollywood-inspired film Bride and Prejudice transposes the plot of Pride and Prejudice onto modern-day India. Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea retells Jane Eyre from the perspective of Bertha Mason, the ‘madwoman in the attic’. Brian Henson’s film The Muppet Christmas Carol has been described as the most faithful film adaptation of A Christmas Carol, raising questions of what we understand by fidelity in literary adaptations. Through an examination of these texts we will explore what the adaptations tell us about the original texts and about the cultural values involved in the process of adaptation. Teaching delivery will consist of ten 50-minute lectures and ten 2-hour seminar/workshops. This is a dual-assessment module, meaning that students will be able to choose to write comparative essays on these texts or to create their own textual adaptations.

Week 1: Introduction

Wek 2: Pride and Prejudice

Week 3: Bride and Prejudice

Week 4: Comparing Pride and Prejudice and Bride and Prejudice

Week 5: Jane Eyre

Week 6: Wide Sargasso Sea

Week 7: Comparing Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea

Week 8: A Christmas Carol

Week 9: The Muppet Christmas Carol

Week 10: Comparing A Christmas Carol and The Muppet Christmas Carol

Mae'r modiwl hwn yn cydymffurfio a FfCChC Lefel 4