Author: Poo, See Wei
Title: 21st century's Sherlock Holmes : comparative study of BBC's Sherlock and CBS's elementary
Other Title: Twenty first century's Sherlock Holmes
Degree: M.A.
Year: 2014
Subject: Holmes, Sherlock (Fictitious character) -- Television adaptations.
Television adaptations -- History and criticism.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: Department of English
Pages: 63 pages : illustrations
Language: English
Abstract: Adaptation is a powerful tool. Sherlock Holmes (SH), the fictional Victorian detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, is still very popular today through its numerous adaptation, including the two latest TV adaptations with contemporary background, Sherlock (BBC, 2010 -present) and Elementary (CBS, 2012 present). Theoretically guided by Hutcheon's (2012) insight that to understand adaptation "in term of successful replication and change" (p. xxvi) and Sugarman's (1996) view that hero is reincarnated to reflect the changing ideas of different times within the shifting historical contexts, this paper aims to extend the current study on the modernized SH TV adaptations by which tends to focus mostly on Sherlock and provide a basic comprehensive insight on how these two different SH are constructed to meet the local and global market. Utilizing Richards' (2010) three masculinity archetypes of Doyle's SH, Pearson's (2007a) framework of televisual character and the adaptation theory of Hutcheon (2012), the findings indicate that Sherlock has successfully replicated the popular symbolic image of SH that contributes to its popularity while Elementary gains its popularity by shaping its SH into a person-like genius. However, both of them have engaged rather remarkable changes in their heroic features which closely ties with the historical event - September 11 Attacks.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: restricted access

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