From Emma to Gemma, or how to play with Madame Bovary

Abstract

This article explores how playing with a classic - Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857) - reanimates its relevance in contemporary society, and rekindles interest in the original work. Drawing upon Gérard Genette's definition of transposition as a 'serious transformation' (Palimpsestes, 1982), this study examines how a classic can be manipulated to appeal to a contemporary audience in Posy Simmonds' 199 graphic novel Gemma Bovary and Anne Fontaine's 2014 film adaptation of the same name. The article highlights the comic and subversive implications of reenacting classic scenes, and underlines how the bovarysme driving each transposition proclaims fiction's triumph over reality. These trans..