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Convergence and the Beast: A Canonical Crossover Affair

Željka Flegar    Josip Juraj Strossmayer University Of Osijek, Croatia    

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abstract

In the digital age it has become almost impossible to view children’s texts outside the context of the new media. This study will focus on three works of children’s fiction, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander/J.K. Rowling; and their respective adaptations, Peter Rabbit, Where the Wild Things Are, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The article draws on contemporary theories of adaptation and the media, particularly the theory of ‘convergence’ and its impact on meaning-making in the production and reception of literary texts. It will take into account the cross-media and transmedia approach to analysing children’s texts, as well as the crossover effect of adapting children’s books into films. Particular attention is paid to the adaptation of still into moving imagery and its shifts in focalisation, providing evidence that the new media have made children’s books accessible to a variety of audiences. Such examples display the contemporary complexity of children’s storytelling and culture within and beyond the canon. Owing to the developments in digital media and technologies, which enable the realistic depiction of complex visual and fantastic elements that are characteristic of children’s texts, in the new millennium children’s literature has indeed become ‘everyone’s business’.

Published
March 9, 2020
Accepted
Nov. 26, 2019
Submitted
Oct. 23, 2019
Language
EN

Keywords: AdaptationPicturebooksConvergenceTransmedia storytellingCrossover

Copyright: © 2019 Željka Flegar. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.