Why do scholars reject judging adaptations by 'fidelity'?

Because the fidelity standard assumes the source is superior and ignores the distinct affordances of each medium. Theorists such as Hutcheon and Stam instead treat adaptation as a creative reinterpretation, asking what the new work does rather than how closely it copies the original.

Adaptation and Intermediality

Stories migrate between media — a novel becomes a film, a play becomes an opera, a poem becomes a game. Adaptation and intermediality study these crossings, moving comparative literature beyond fidelity-policing toward a richer account of how works are remade across media.

Definition

The comparative study of how works move and relate across media — through adaptation, intermedial reference, and remediation — and of the theories that account for these transmedial relations.

Scope

Covers the theory of adaptation and intermediality: Hutcheon's general theory of adaptation as a creative act of repetition with variation, dialogic approaches to film adaptation that reject mere fidelity, and the taxonomy and concepts of intermediality and remediation. Concerns the movement and relation of works across media.

Core questions

What is adaptation, and how should it be evaluated beyond fidelity to a source?
How do works move across media, and what is transformed in the process?
What are the different kinds of intermedial relation?
How do new media refashion and absorb older ones?

Key theories

Theory of adaptation: Hutcheon theorized adaptation as an autonomous work of 'repetition with variation' across media, displacing the fidelity model with attention to the pleasures and processes of adapting.
Dialogic adaptation: Stam drew on Bakhtinian dialogism and intertextuality to reject fidelity criticism, treating film adaptation as a transformative reading and rewriting of its literary source.
Intermediality: Rajewsky distinguished medial transposition, media combination, and intermedial reference, providing a precise framework for the relations between literature and other media.
Remediation: Bolter and Grusin argued that media continually refashion one another, so that new media remediate older forms and literature participates in a wider economy of media.

History

Adaptation study long suffered from a 'fidelity' bias that judged adaptations by their faithfulness to literary originals. Around the turn of the millennium this gave way to dialogic and intertextual approaches (Stam, 2005) and to a general theory of adaptation (Hutcheon, 2006), while media theory contributed concepts of intermediality (Rajewsky, 2005) and remediation (Bolter and Grusin, 1999), enriching comparative literature's account of transmedial relations.

Debates

Fidelity versus transformation: Whether an adaptation should be judged by its faithfulness to the source text or, as Hutcheon and Stam argue, valued as an autonomous creative transformation across media.

Key figures

Linda Hutcheon
Robert Stam
Irina Rajewsky
Jay David Bolter
Richard Grusin

Seminal works

hutcheon2006
stam2005
rajewsky2005
boltergrusin1999

Frequently asked questions

Why do scholars reject judging adaptations by 'fidelity'?: Because the fidelity standard assumes the source is superior and ignores the distinct affordances of each medium. Theorists such as Hutcheon and Stam instead treat adaptation as a creative reinterpretation, asking what the new work does rather than how closely it copies the original.