38
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
of examination. Function, in this sense, does not (necessarily) imply a causal
relationship between “original” and “adaptation.” It cannot be evaluated on
the grounds of empirical results. Rather, in the sense of Winfried Fluck’s
Funktionsgeschichte, statements on literary functions remain speculative
in that they postulate possible references to social practices. 21 Since social
function is inextricably coupled with literary “effect,” novels create “implicit
functional models” on which basis they want to realize their effect. 22 The
function of literature is understood as the “specific condition under which
literature creates meaning and effect.” 23
What makes Fluck’s functional model so valuable for adaptation studies
is its focus on the variability and contingency of cultural functions. Fluck
presumes that although cultural functions differ depending on perspective
and context, fiction always functions to exemplarily structure the world. 24
As “communicative acts,” literary texts (or adaptations, for that matter) are in
a “process of continuous negotiation and readjustment, necessitated by the
instable reference of the literary text, which urges it to constantly renewed
mediation of the real and the imaginary.” 25 Fluck thus implicitly states that
fictional discourses inherently extrapolate themselves in recursive communication processes, which are at work while reading one text. However,
such signification processes can also be distributed to different “versions” of
one text, as in adaptation. If, as Stephen Greenblatt has suggested, “collective
beliefs and experiences [are] shaped, moved from one medium to another,
concentrated in manageable aesthetic form” through social energy that is
transformed into aesthetic and cultural objects by means of “a structured
negotiation and exchange,” 26 a cultural text is “no longer only a product of an
individual creator subject, able to universally fix all cultural energies at play
in the seclusion of a work. Instead, it is itself regarded as an expressive field
of these genuinely collective cultural energies, which facilitate the text and
lend its impact to the audience.” 27 Having entered the cultural field, stories
are subject to modification, interaction, and development. Alternatively, to
21 Winfried Fluck, Das kulturelle Imaginäre. Eine Funktionsgeschichte des amerikanischen
Romans 1790–1900 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 12.
22 Ibid., 10, 14, my translation.
23 Ibid., 15, my translation.
24 Ibid., 16, my translation.
25 Ibid., 16, my translation.
26 Stephen Greenblatt, “The Circulation of Social Energy” [1988], in Modern Criticism and
Theory: A Reader. 2 nd ed., ed. by David Lodge and Nigel Wood (Harlow: Longman, 2000), 499.
27 Hubert Zapf, Kurze Geschichte der anglo-amerikanischen Literaturtheorie, 2 nd ed. (München:
Fink, 1996), 232, my translation.
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
of examination. Function, in this sense, does not (necessarily) imply a causal
relationship between “original” and “adaptation.” It cannot be evaluated on
the grounds of empirical results. Rather, in the sense of Winfried Fluck’s
Funktionsgeschichte, statements on literary functions remain speculative
in that they postulate possible references to social practices. 21 Since social
function is inextricably coupled with literary “effect,” novels create “implicit
functional models” on which basis they want to realize their effect. 22 The
function of literature is understood as the “specific condition under which
literature creates meaning and effect.” 23
What makes Fluck’s functional model so valuable for adaptation studies
is its focus on the variability and contingency of cultural functions. Fluck
presumes that although cultural functions differ depending on perspective
and context, fiction always functions to exemplarily structure the world. 24
As “communicative acts,” literary texts (or adaptations, for that matter) are in
a “process of continuous negotiation and readjustment, necessitated by the
instable reference of the literary text, which urges it to constantly renewed
mediation of the real and the imaginary.” 25 Fluck thus implicitly states that
fictional discourses inherently extrapolate themselves in recursive communication processes, which are at work while reading one text. However,
such signification processes can also be distributed to different “versions” of
one text, as in adaptation. If, as Stephen Greenblatt has suggested, “collective
beliefs and experiences [are] shaped, moved from one medium to another,
concentrated in manageable aesthetic form” through social energy that is
transformed into aesthetic and cultural objects by means of “a structured
negotiation and exchange,” 26 a cultural text is “no longer only a product of an
individual creator subject, able to universally fix all cultural energies at play
in the seclusion of a work. Instead, it is itself regarded as an expressive field
of these genuinely collective cultural energies, which facilitate the text and
lend its impact to the audience.” 27 Having entered the cultural field, stories
are subject to modification, interaction, and development. Alternatively, to
21 Winfried Fluck, Das kulturelle Imaginäre. Eine Funktionsgeschichte des amerikanischen
Romans 1790–1900 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 12.
22 Ibid., 10, 14, my translation.
23 Ibid., 15, my translation.
24 Ibid., 16, my translation.
25 Ibid., 16, my translation.
26 Stephen Greenblatt, “The Circulation of Social Energy” [1988], in Modern Criticism and
Theory: A Reader. 2 nd ed., ed. by David Lodge and Nigel Wood (Harlow: Longman, 2000), 499.
27 Hubert Zapf, Kurze Geschichte der anglo-amerikanischen Literaturtheorie, 2 nd ed. (München:
Fink, 1996), 232, my translation.