Paper to Screen

an analysis on reading classics and shakespearian cinematographic adaptations

Abstract

This research discusses the issue of alternative teaching of classics through film adaptations. The main goal of the research is to understand the functioning of literary works and their cinematic adaptations and the way in which they relate transtextually, and to create didactic-pedagogical opportunities in the classroom. For this purpose, excerpts from two Shakespearean works were analyzed: The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night – in comparison to their cinematographic adaptations: 10 Things I Hate About You and She's the Man –, taking into account factors such as the modifications caused by historical movements, as well as by the different materialities at stake; seeking points of difference and parity in order to understand the process of transtextuality. We used qualitative bibliographic research in order to investigate, through different authors, the relationship between literature, cinema and transtexuality, stressed by the issue of different significant materialities. It is observed that textuality – even in its different material spaces – is not isolated from the world but maintains transtextual relations with several other texts that circulate in the field of knowledge, regardless of their chronological order. It is possible to think about the possibility of rising interest in reading classics, such as the Shakespearean ones, through the movement of (co)relationship between cinema and book, raising provocations about the comparison of the versions published in different media, pointing to a more accurate and critical reading.