Explains and expands the discourse surrounding the terms adaption and appropriation. Combines theoretical grounding with the aesthetic pleasure of reading and writing.

From the apparently simple adaptation of a text into film, theatre or a new literary work, to the more complex appropriation of style or meaning, it is arguable that all texts are somehow connected to a network of existing texts and art forms. Combining theoretical grounding with the aesthetic pleasure of reading and writing, this book explores: - multiple definitions and practices of adaptation and appropriation - the cultural and aesthetic politics behind the impulse to adapt - diverse ways in which contemporary literature and film adapt, revise and re-imagine other works of art - the impact on adaptation and appropriation of theoretical movements, including structuralism, post-structuralism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, feminism and gender studies - the appropriation across time and cultures of specific canonical texts, but also of literary archetypes such as myth or fairy tale. Ranging across genres and harnessing concepts from fields as diverse as musicology and the natural sciences, this volume brings clarity to the complex debates surrounding adaptation and appropriation, presenting a much-needed resource for those studying literature, film or culture.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: Defining Terms
1. What is adaptation?
2. What is appropriation?
Embedded texts and interplay
Sustained homage or plagiarism?
Part 2: Literary Archetypes
3. 'Here's a strange alteration': Shakespearean Appropriations
4. 'It's an old story': Myth and Metamorphosis
Modern metamorphoses
Orphic narratives
5. 'Other Versions' of Fairy Tale and Folklore
Part 3: Alternative Perspectives
6. Constructing Alternative Points of View
Jean Rhys's 'Wide Sargasso Sea': 'Just another adaptation'?
J.M. Coetzee's 'Foe' and the Master-Text
Caryl Phillips's 'The Nature of Blood': Interwoven narratives and circulatory systems
Michael Cunningham's 'The Hours': Riffing on 'Mrs Dalloway'
7. 'We - Other Victorians" '
or, Rethinking the Nineteenth Century
Coming out of the shadows: Peter Carey's 'Jack Maggs'
8. Stretching History
or, Appropriating the Facts
9. Appropriating the Arts and Sciences
Afterword
Glossary of Selected Terms
Bibliography
Index