Svart sida - Svart ruta. Självreflexiv fiktion i adaption mellan medier

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines the process of adapting literary works acknowledged as being highly self-reflexive; works often described as metafictions. Adaptation is in this context understood as both the process of transposing one work of art to another medium, e.g. making a movie based on a book, and the final product of that process. The main focus of this study is Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–67), and two recent adaptations of this work; Martin Rowson’s graphic novel of the same name (1996), and Michael Winterbottom’s film A Cock and Bull Story (2005). Both adaptations concern themselves with the self-reflexive nature of Sterne’s work, but use different methods in transferring these aspects to their adaptation’s respective medium. By highlighting different forms of meta-reference, the thesis aims to show how different aspects of the source text are adapted and commented upon in the adaptations. The infamous black page in Tristram Shandy, for instance, becomes a black screen in A Cock and Bull Story, and Tristram’s story itself a movie-within-the-movie. To widen the perspective of the analysis, one chapter is devoted to discussing John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), and Karel Reisz’ film of the same name (1981), based on a screenplay by Harold Pinter. These two works serve as examples of a different aspect of self-reflexivity, and a different approach to the process of adaptation. A point of departure for the analysis is a categorization of four different forms of meta-reference, pointing to different aspects of the work of art: meta-material, meta-linguistic, meta-narrative and meta-adaptive. How the self-reflexive qualities of these references are recreated in a different medium is analysed by focusing on what I refer to as meta-markers, referring to specific components of an artwork, containing the reference. For example, the black page in Tristram Shandy is read as a meta-marker functioning as a meta-material reference.