Criticism

Giddings, Robert, Keith Selby, and Chris Wensley. Screening the Novel: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatization. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990, 174 P.

In-depth study of the problems and concerns associated with producing screen adaptations of literary classics. The authors focus primarily on two case study examples, Charles Dickens's Great Expectations and William Thackeray's Vanity Fair.

Heath, Stephen, and Gillian Skirrow. "An Interview with Raymond Williams." In Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, edited by Tania Modleski, pp. 3-17. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

Interview with the author of Television: Technology and Cultural Form on the relation of television to the concepts of "mass" and "popular culture" and on the significance of the medium to the organization of modern society.

Holderness, Graham, and Christopher McCullough. "Shakespeare on the Screen: A Selective Filmography." Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearean Study and Production 39 (1987): 13-37.

Lists "complete, straightforward versions of Shakespeare's plays in film, television, and video form."

Jameson, Fredric. "Reading without Interpretation: Postmodernism and the Video-Text." In The Linguistics of Writing: Arguments between Language and Literature, edited by Nigel Fabb, Derek Attridge, Alan Durant and Colin MacCabe, pp. 199-223. New York: Methuen, 1987.

Interprets the medium of video art as one that produces postmodern texts—those which resist traditional thematic interpretation.

Klaver, Elizabeth. "Samuel Beckett's Ohio Impromptu, Quad, and What Where: How It Is in the Matrix of Text and Television." Contemporary Literature 32, No. 3 (Fall 1991): 366-82.

Concentrates on the semiotic "tension between visual and verbal" associated with the translation of Beckett's narrative texts into video images.

Lachman, Marvin. "Prime Time Crime." The Armchair Detective 19, No. 4 (Fall 1986): 362-72.

Catalogues television series and adaptations based on mystery and detective fiction.

Larson, Randall D. Films into Books: An Analytical Bibliography of Film Novelizations, Movie, and TV Tieins. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1995, 608 p.

Bibliography of original novels derived from film and television. Larson includes an extensive introduction on the creation of novelizations and transcribes viewpoints offered by dozens of well-known authors of such works.

Stoneback, H. R. "Jeopardy in the Evening: For Whom the Telly Tolls." The Hemingway Review VIII, No. 2 (Spring 1989): 66-7.

Notes the appearance of questions pertaining to the life and works of Ernest Hemingway on the popular television game show Jeopardy!

Traub, James. "Intrigues of the Story Trade: How Mega-Books Become Mini-Series." Channels of Communication 4, No. 6 (March/April 1985): 22-6.

Investigates the big business of adapting popular contemporary novels for television's mass audiences.

Wade, David. "The Limits of the Electronic Media." Times Literary Supplement 71 (5 May 1972): 515-16.

Recounts the possible detrimental effects on literature of television and radio adaptation.

Widdowson, Peter. "'Tragedies of Modern Life'? Thomas Hardy on Radio, TV, and Film." In Hardy in History: A Study of Literary Sociology, pp. 93-126. London: Routledge, 1989.

Offers an interpretation of television and film versions of Hardy's works. Widdowson sees many of these as impressive pieces of historical realism that nevertheless fail to authentically re-create Hardy's "historical myth of Wessex."

Wright, Andrew. "Trollope Transformed; Or, The Disguises of Mr. Harding and Others." In Victorian Literature and Society, edited by James R. Kincaid and Albert J. Kuhn, pp. 315-30. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984.

Evaluates the process of abridging and simplifying literary texts for mass consumption as television and film adaptations.