From 19th Century Femininity in Literature to 20th Century Feminism on Film: Discourse Translation and Adaptation

Aiming at both identifying the representation of femininity as a social construct and analysing the way in which it can be translated into film adaptations of novels, this work focuses on the interpretations of a famous and, at the same time, problematic literary work, namely the 1994 film Little Women (dir. Gillian Armstrong), reworking the classic nineteenth-century American best-seller 'Little Women' by Louisa May Alcott. In particular, drawing on the critical apparatus of feminism(s), the paper lays emphasis on the way in which the metafictional texture of the novel captures instances of reality into fiction, glimpses of autobiography and, of course, femininity at the level of the filmic text. Such aspects are then considered from the perspective of adaptation and translation theories: contrasting the literary translation with the audio-visual one, the undertaking means to highlight the losses in the latter mode of expression and the extent to which the defining elements aforementioned are preserved in the Romanian language.

Oana-Celia Gheorghiu holds an M.A. degree in Translation and Interpretation Studies and is currently completing her doctoral thesis entitled "Literature, Politics and the Media. Anglo-American Representations of 9/11". Her research area includes the politics of representation at the level of British and American contemporary fiction, seen through the mirror of critical theory and cultural studies. She is a literary translator, working with renowned Romanian publishing houses. She has translated many books, such as: "Love and Friendship" by Jane Austen, "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott, "War Horse" by Michael Morpurgo, "Twenty Years in Romania" by Maude Parkinson, "Lowboy" and "The Right Hand of Sleep" by John Wray, "Agent 6" by Tom Rob Smith, etc.