BEYOND THE SHADES OF PEMBERLEY: PURSUING MR. DARCY AMONG RECENT REINCARNATIONS AND UPGRADES
BEYOND THE SHADES OF PEMBERLEY: PURSUING MR. DARCY AMONG RECENT REINCARNATIONS AND UPGRADES

Summary/Abstract: Without aspiring to cover more than a fraction of the hundreds of revisitations of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in literature, cinema and related media,this paper aims to identify significant turning points in the evolution of its intertextually prolific male character, leading up to his current status as the ultimate heart-throb of British fiction. The analysis will attempt to discuss the liberties ostensibly taken by the 1995 BBC adaptation and to assess its impact on subsequent responses, as well as to examine more recent cinematic endeavours, ranging from the heavily romanticised 2007 biopic Becoming Jane to the 2008 time-travel fantasy Lost in Austen. As far as prose rewritings are concerned, while not entirely disregarding attempts made to provide Darcy with an even more sonorous voice or the novel itself with a sequel, the paper will pay more attention to his contemporary avatars as they emerge from texts such as the first two instalments of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones series and the associated films, as well as to instances of genre-shifting and to the profusion of Darcy references to be found at the level of the wide range of Austen related merchandise and online philosophy available today,with a view to pointing out perhaps insufficiently clear links between apparently unrelated texts or products, as well as establishing how much of 19th-century Darcyhas been lost in adaptation and whether the continuing fascination with Austen’s most eligible male protagonist is indicative of his timeless appeal or commanded by a constantly updated and upgraded construct that bears little similarity to the original.

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