ABSTRACT
Adaptation theory proposes varying vocabularies to classify degrees of adherence to or departure from the original (McFarlane 3-15; Giddings et al. 1-27). J. Dudley Andrew thus proposes “transformation,” “borrowing,” and “intersection” to foreground issues of fidelity (98-104); Michael Klein and Gillian Parker likewise chart a continuum from the faithful to the free, in which the source text provides “the occasion for an original work” (10; qtd. Giddings et al. 11). Keith Cohen recognizes only this last, which he terms “subversive adaptation” as a “truly artistic feat” (245; see also Wagner 222-27). I build on these vocabularies in investigating relationships to history in the adaptation of classic novels, and I outline the parameters of this problem: in the translation from novel to screen of nineteenth-century England to its millennial audi ences, what do we mean when we talk about authenticity?
