GULLIVER’S TRAVELSON THE MID-EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STAGE; OR, WHAT IS AN ADAPTATION?

goring, paul;

This essay explores a selection of mid-eighteenth-century stage works, all of which have a starting point in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, in order to consider the term ‘adaptation’ and ways in which it is applied in contemporary Adaptation Studies. It suggests that the appropriation of narrative elements from a literary precursor remains paramount in the identification of works as ‘adaptations’, and that this can compromise the critique of the ‘rhetoric of fidelity’ undertaken by scholars within the field, such as Linda Hutcheon. The essay suggests that consideration of aspects beyond narrative – for example, political echoes – might also fall under the purview of adaptation. It addresses a numberof little-known dance reworkings of the Lilliput section of Gulliver’s Travels as well as David Garrick’s Lilliput and Charles Macklin’s The True-Born Irishman