Skip Navigation

Adaptation 2009 2(1):34-48; doi:10.1093/adaptation/apn024
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Louttit, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Cranford, Popular Culture, and the Politics of Adapting the Victorian Novel for Television

Chris Louttit*

* Department of English, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. E-mail: c.louttit{at}let.ru.nl


  Abstract

This essay analyses recent trends and patterns in television adaptations of the Victorian novel since about 2005. Focusing closely on Andrew Davies's Bleak House (2005) and Heidi Thomas's Cranford (2007) it reads them alongside wider political, social and economic forces at work in the New Labour period. It argues that, much like the Blairite administration and other refashionings of British culture and heritage at this time, these adaptations seem on the surface to be quite innovative. In other, deeper ways, however, they show continuities with earlier more traditional examples of costume drama, and are quite conservative both in their politics and in their approach to the genre.

Key Words: Victorian novel • television adaptation • politics • New Labour • soap opera • heritage culture


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.