Translation priorities: Lewis Carroll’s Alice seen from different perspectives

Abstract

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There , Lewis Carroll’s most famous books, have been widely intersemiotically translated throughout the last 150 years. A number of illustration, plays, ballets, songs, movies, TV shows and others was made by renowned and lesser known artists. There is not, however, a systematic approach of this phenomenon in a more strict field of analysis of intermediality and intersemiotic translations. Two notable examples will serve for analysis: a famous TV series by Jim Henson, The Muppet Show , aired from 1976 to 1981, featuring puppets and a human guest, in which an episode from the fifth season starred Brooke Shields playing Alice in 1980; and 1988 film with a blend of stop motion animation by multiple prize winner Czech director Jan Švankmajer, called Neco z Alenky . We intend to compare these translations of Alice’s novels, in which translators choose opposingly distinct characteristics of the books, but both of fundamental importance to the source.