Introduction

Abstract

The introduction to this volume examines the many parallels between what Lawrence Venuti has called the scandals of translation and the corresponding scandals occasioned by both specific adaptations and adaptation in general, the respective focus of the volume’s two parts, to argue that adaptation is at least as scandalous as translation. Analyzing the conflicts between the ideals of integrity and of adaptability, it uses Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 film To Be Or Not to Be to dramatize the connections between the scandal given by an adaptation that dares treat the Nazi occupation of Poland as material for a romantic farce and the scandals inevitably raised by adaptation as a practice. It concludes with a brief summary of each of the thirteen chapters that follow.