Wild Adaptation

Authors

  • Mark Fortier University of Guelph

Abstract

One of the most vexed questions in the understanding of adaptation, and especially, for particular reasons, of adaptation of Shakespeare, is the question of definition. What is, or is not, an adaptation? (What is, or is not, Shakespeare?) While acknowledging the heuristic usefulness of attempts to define adaptation more or less narrowly (it is always interesting to see the specific ways things group together), these theses argue that there is an abiding need, an overriding need, to treat adaptation as a truly expansive and open field of study and activity, no matter how much this might militate against the disciplining of adaptation. Sophisticated analysis of adaptation must entail both systems of categorization and an openness to that which does not fit in these systems. Ultimately, however, the classifiable is no more than a provisional subset in the general and open field of adaptation. This essay explores what Fortier theorizes as "wild adaptation," a form of engagement with prior texts that cannot be policed and refuses containment by reductive definitional paradigms.

Author Biography

Mark Fortier, University of Guelph

Mark Fortier is Professor of English at the University of Guelph and Director of the School of English and Theatre Studies. He has published on Shakespeare, contemporary theater, cultural studies, legal studies, and theory. His most recent book is The Culture Of Equity in Early Modern England (2005).

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Published

2007-05-01