A theory of Adaptation by Linda Hutcheon

According to its dictionary meaning, “to adapt” is to adjust, to alter, to make suitable.

An adaptation is a critical rereading, a critical revisiting of a text. I don’t necessary have to reproduce, to replicate it. Linda Hutchen statest that "[a]daptation is repetition, but repetition without replication". I’m moving from one system to another, from words to images, or sounds. 

It is a fundamental process by means of which literature survives, fundamental process by means of which culture is kept alive.

There is a dialogic connection between two texts as both are in constatn dialogue to each other, the source text and the target text. When we call a work an adaptation, we openly announce its overt relationship to another work.

Concerning fidelity, the author claims that "[a]n adaptation’s double nature does not mean, however, that proximity or fidelity to the adapted text should be the criterion of judgment or the focus of analysis."

Linda Hutcheon’s book on adaptation begins with the statement, “[a]dapting is a bit like redecorating,” which is an apt description of what is happening across the media landscape today.