Skip to Main Content

Hours & Login Menu

  • Hours
  • Login
    • Library Search Login
    • Interlibrary Loan
Dartmouth Libraries Dartmouth Libraries

Global dropdown menu

    • Borrow and Request
      • Who Can Borrow
      • What Can You Borrow
      • Loan Periods and Renewals
      • Borrow from Other Libraries
      • Request Materials
      • All Borrow and Request
    • Collections
      • Digital Collections
      • Media Collections
      • Oral Histories
      • Collections Care
      • All Collections
    • Course Reserves
      • Find Course Reserves
      • Create or Add Course Reserves
      • All Course Reserves
    • Off-Campus Access
    • Records Management
      • Retention and Disposition
      • Confidential Monthly Destruction
      • Electronic Records
      • Physical Records
      • Retention Schedules
      • All Records Management
    • Search and Browse
      • Library Search
      • Databases
      • Journals
      • Research Guides
      • Maps and Atlases
      • Newspapers
      • Dartmouth Digital Commons
      • Music Scores
      • BorrowDirect
      • Archives and Manuscripts
      • All Search and Browse
    • Design and Produce
      • Audio and Video
      • Book Arts
      • Design and Digital Art
      • Equipment and Hardware
      • Software
      • All Design and Produce
    • Data Services
      • Research Data Management
      • Data Analysis and Visualization
      • Data Repositories
      • Data Workshops
      • Datasets at Dartmouth
      • All Data Services
    • Digital Scholarship
    • Publishing and Copyright
      • Copyright
      • Open Access
      • Publisher Agreements
      • Publishing for Faculty
      • Publishing for Students
      • All Publishing and Copyright
    • Research Help
    • Teaching and Workshops
    • Print, Copy, Scan
    • Locations
      • Baker-Berry Library
      • Book Arts Workshop
      • Evans Map Room
      • Feldberg Business and Engineering Library
      • Health Sciences and Biomedical Libraries
      • Jones Media Center
      • Library Collections and Services Facility
      • Rauner Special Collections Library
      • Sherman Art Library
      • All Locations
    • Accessibility
    • Events
    • Exhibits
    • Hours
    • Study Spaces
    • About Dartmouth Libraries
      • Council on the Libraries
      • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
      • Friends of the Libraries
      • Library Departments
      • Strategic Framework
      • Staff Directory
      • All About Dartmouth Libraries
    • Employment
      • Staff and Professional Positions
      • Student Positions
      • Fellowships
      • All Employment
    • News and Highlights
    • Policies
    • Programs and Awards
      • Alumni Memorial Book Fund Program
      • MAD Research Video Contest
      • Staff Awards
      • All Programs and Awards
    • Contact Us
    • We're Here to Help
      • Students
      • Faculty
      • Alums
      • Staff
      • Visiting Researchers and Community
      • All We're Here to Help
    • Find a Specialist
      • Subject Librarians
      • Audio and Video Production
      • Preservation and Emergency Preparedness
      • Publishing and Copyright
      • Records Management
      • Research Data Services
      • Systematic Review
      • All Find a Specialist
    • Ask Us
  • Hours
    • Library Search Login
    • Interlibrary Loan

Global dropdown menu

    • Borrow and Request
      • Who Can Borrow
      • What Can You Borrow
      • Loan Periods and Renewals
      • Borrow from Other Libraries
      • Request Materials
    • Collections
      • Digital Collections
      • Media Collections
      • Oral Histories
      • Collections Care
    • Course Reserves
      • Find Course Reserves
      • Create or Add Course Reserves
    • Off-Campus Access
    • Records Management
      • Retention and Disposition
      • Confidential Monthly Destruction
      • Electronic Records
      • Physical Records
      • Retention Schedules
    • Search and Browse
      • Library Search
      • Databases
      • Journals
      • Research Guides
      • Maps and Atlases
      • Newspapers
      • Dartmouth Digital Commons
      • Music Scores
      • BorrowDirect
      • Archives and Manuscripts
    • Design and Produce
      • Audio and Video
      • Book Arts
      • Design and Digital Art
      • Equipment and Hardware
      • Software
    • Data Services
      • Research Data Management
      • Data Analysis and Visualization
      • Data Repositories
      • Data Workshops
      • Datasets at Dartmouth
    • Digital Scholarship
    • Publishing and Copyright
      • Copyright
      • Open Access
      • Publisher Agreements
      • Publishing for Faculty
      • Publishing for Students
    • Research Help
    • Teaching and Workshops
    • Print, Copy, Scan
    • Locations
      • Baker-Berry Library
      • Book Arts Workshop
      • Evans Map Room
      • Feldberg Business and Engineering Library
      • Health Sciences and Biomedical Libraries
      • Jones Media Center
      • Library Collections and Services Facility
      • Rauner Special Collections Library
      • Sherman Art Library
    • Accessibility
    • Events
    • Exhibits
    • Hours
    • Study Spaces
    • About Dartmouth Libraries
      • Council on the Libraries
      • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
      • Friends of the Libraries
      • Library Departments
      • Strategic Framework
      • Staff Directory
    • Employment
      • Staff and Professional Positions
      • Student Positions
      • Fellowships
    • News and Highlights
    • Policies
    • Programs and Awards
      • Alumni Memorial Book Fund Program
      • MAD Research Video Contest
      • Staff Awards
    • Contact Us
    • We're Here to Help
      • Students
      • Faculty
      • Alums
      • Staff
      • Visiting Researchers and Community
    • Find a Specialist
      • Subject Librarians
      • Audio and Video Production
      • Preservation and Emergency Preparedness
      • Publishing and Copyright
      • Records Management
      • Research Data Services
      • Systematic Review
    • Ask Us
  • Hours
    • Library Search Login
    • Interlibrary Loan
  1. Dartmouth Libraries
  2. Research Guides
  3. Dartmouth Libraries Guides
  4. Television Studies
  5. Shakespeare on television

Television Studies

This guide is an introduction to library and internet resources for Television Studies.
  • Introduction
  • TV courses
  • Introductory resources
  • Finding books about television
  • Finding television shows
  • Journals & magazines about television
  • History of television
  • Censorship
  • TV criticism
  • TV theory
  • Writing for television
  • Television adaptations
    • Shakespeare on television
  • TV ratings
  • TV audiences
  • TV advertising
  • TV reviews
  • TV genres This link opens in a new window
  • Quality television
  • Children's television
  • Sports on TV
  • Racial & ethnic representation on TV
    • African American diaspora
    • Asian American diaspora
    • Hispanic American diaspora
    • Native American & Indigenous diaspora
  • Women on/in/creating Television
    • Examples of women on television
  • LGBTQIA+
    • Examples of LGBTQIA+ on television
  • Television broadcasting & networks
  • Global television
  • Television in Europe
  • Chinese television
  • Spanish language TV
  • Public access television
  • Television news
  • Mass media industry
  • Transcripts
  • Television through the decades
    • 1950's Television & Earlier
    • 1960's Television
    • 1970's Television
    • 1980's Television
    • 1990's Television
    • 2000's Television
    • 2010's Television
  • Streaming television
  • Streaming film services
  • Internet resources
  • Future of Media
  • Back to Film & Media Studies
  • Scholarly communication This link opens in a new window
  • Feedback

Subject Librarian

Profile Photo
Lucinda M. Hall
Email Me
Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
Social: LinkedIn Page LibraryThing Page
Subjects: Film and Media Studies, Geography, Polar Studies

Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)

Articles and other writings about television adaptations can be found in many publications. Our collection has one journal that looks exclusively at adaptations of all types and it is called Adaptation. You can use Film & Television Literature Index or the search box at the top of the page to find articles.

  • Issue cover artAdaptation: the journal of literature on screen studies
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    This journal contains several articles on television adaptations of Shakespeare's plays.
  • Resource artShakespeare survey by Cambridge University Press
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Each yearbook focuses on a specific play, aspect or adapting the works to film, television or radio.
  • Resource logoFilm & television literature index by EBSCO Publishing
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    Use this index to find articles about television adaptations.

Keeping up with the journal literature

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.

A definition for 'Adaptation'

A pre-existing work that has been made into a film. Adaptations are often of literary or theatrical works, but musical theatre, best-selling fiction and non-fiction, comic books, computer games, children’s toys, and so on have also been regularly adapted for the cinema. Adaptations of well-known literary and theatrical texts were common in the silent era (see silent cinema; costume drama; epic film; history film) and have been a staple of virtually all national cinemas through the 20th and 21st centuries. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories (1887–1927) have been adapted in a range of national contexts but probably the most adapted author is Shakespeare, whose plays have appeared in film form as a large-budget Hollywood musical (West Side Story (Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, US, 1961)), a historical epic set in feudal Japan (Kumonosu-jo/Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1957)), a Bollywood musical (Angoor (Gulzar, India, 1982)), and a children’s animation (The Lion King (Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, US, 1994)), to name but a few. Adaptations often sit within cycles associated with a particular time and place, as with the British heritage film in the 1980s (see cycle). It is claimed that adaptations account for up to 50 per cent of all Hollywood films and are consistently rated amongst the highest grossing at the box office, as aptly demonstrated by the commercial success of recent adaptations of the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Other varied US adaptations include: computer games (Resident Evil (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2002)), graphic novels (Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)), comic books (The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012)); see also cinematic universe; superhero film), and children’s toys (Transformers: The Last Knight (Michael Bay, 2017)). A number of films also display a certain level of self-reflexivity regarding the process of adaptation, as can be seen in Adaptation (Spike Jonze, US, 2002) and The LEGO Movie (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2012). A property ripe for adaptation is referred to as pre-sold; older works in particular are attractive to film producers because they are often out of copyright (see Deal, the).   ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Adaptation. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 31 May. 2023

In the Library's collections

The following are useful subject headings for searching the online catalog. The books on adapting source materials for films are shelved in the call number range PN 1997.85 on Baker Level 4.

  • shakespeare william 1564 1616 television adaptations
    This is an example subject search for adaptations for a specific author.
  • television adaptations
  • television plays technique
    Books on this subject are in the call number range PN 1996 on Baker Level 4.
  • television authorship
    Books about television authorship are shelved in PN 1992.7 or PN 1996 on Baker Level 4.

Introductory reading(s)

  • Cover ArtThe Cambridge companion to Shakespeare on screen by Russell Jackson, ed.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PR 3093 .C363 2020
    ISBN: 9781108431552
    The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen provides a lively guide to film and television productions adapted from Shakespeare's plays. Offering an essential resource for students of Shakespeare, the companion considers topics such as the early history of Shakespeare films, the development of 'live' broadcasts from theatre to cinema, the influence of promotion and marketing, and the range of versions available in 'world cinema'. ...
  • Cover artThe classic serial on television and radio by Robert Giddings; Keith Selby
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1992.3 .G7 G44 2001
    ISBN: 9780333713884
    The classic serial, invented by BBC Radio Drama sixty years ago, survived and adapted itself to television, the arrival of colour and the global market in what has become a flood of classics with all channels competing for ratings and overseas sales. This richly detailed book traces these developments and analyses the genre's response to social, economic, technical and cultural changes, which have re-shaped it into the form we recognise today. The book contains considerable interview material with performers and media professionals.
  • Cover artRemake television: reboot, re-use, recycle by Carlen Lavigne, ed.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780739183335
    Remakes are pervasive in today's popular culture, whether they take the form of reboots, "re-imaginings," or overly familiar sequels. Television remakes have proven popular with producers and networks interested in building on the nostalgic capital of past successes (or giving a second chance to underused properties). Some TV remakes have been critical and commercial hits, and others haven't made it past the pilot stage; all have provided valuable material ripe for academic analysis. In Remake Television: Reboot, Re-use, Recycle contributors from a variety of backgrounds offer multicultural, multidisciplinary perspectives on remake themes in popular television series, from classic cult favorites such as The Avengers (1961-69) and The X-Files (1993-2002) to current hits like Doctor Who (2005-present) and The Walking Dead (2010-present).
  • Cover artSmall-screen Shakespeare by Peter Cochran
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781443846547
    Small-Screen Shakespeare is a guide to all the Shakespeare productions available for viewing on computer or TV. From Beerbohm Tree's silent scene from King John, to Helen Mirren as Prospera and Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff, Peter Cochran gives an expert opinion on the best and the worst, basing his judgements on a lifetime of viewing, teaching, acting and directing. The book covers films, television productions, plays on YouTube, and DVDs of videoed stage productions, as well as cinematic Shakespearean spin-offs such as Throne of Blood and Joe Macbeth. ...

Selected book title(s)

  • Cover artAdapting science fiction to television: small screen, expanded universe by Max Sexton; Malcolm Cook
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1992.8 .T45 S39 2015
    ISBN: 9781442252691
    Before it reached television, science fiction existed on the printed page, in comic books, and on movie screens for decades. Adapting science fiction to the new medium posed substantial challenges: Small viewing screens and limited production facilities made it difficult to achieve the sense of wonder that had become the genre's hallmark. Yet, television also offered unprecedented opportunities. Its serial nature allowed for longer, more complex stories, as well as developing characters and building suspense over time. ...
  • Cover artAlmost Shakespeare: reinventing his works for cinema and television by James R. Keller; Leslie Stratyner, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PR 3093 .A46 2004
    ISBN: 9780786419098
    In the past two decades, Othello has tried out for the basketball team, Macbeth has taken over a fast food joint and King Lear has moved to an Iowa farm--Shakespeare is everywhere in popular culture. This collection of essays addresses the use of Shakespearean narratives, themes, imagery and characterizations in non-Shakespearian cinema. The essays explore how Shakespeare and his work are manipulated within the popular media and explore topics such as racism, jealousy, misogyny and nationality. The submissions concentrate on film and television programs that are adaptations of Shakespearean plays, including My Own Private Idaho, CSI-Miami, A Thousand Acres, Prospero's Books, O, 10 Things I Hate About You, Withnail and I, Get Over It, and The West Wing. ...
  • Cover artChaucer on screen: absence, presence, and adapting the Canterbury tales by Kathleen Coyne Kelly; Tison Pugh, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PR 1872 .C47 2016
    ISBN: 9780814253724
    Unlike William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and other great authors who have enjoyed continued success in Hollywood, Geoffrey Chaucer has largely been shunted to the margins of the cinematic world. Chaucer on Screen: Absence, Presence, and Adapting the Canterbury Tales investigates the various translations of Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales to film and television, tracing out how the legacies of the great fourteenth-century English poet have been revisited and reinterpreted through visual media.
  • Cover artA history of Shakespeare on screen: a century of film and television by Kenneth S. Rothwell
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PR 3093 .R67 2004
    ISBN: 9780521543118
    A History of Shakespeare on Screen chronicles how film-makers have re-imagined Shakespeare's plays from the earliest exhibitions in music halls and nickelodeons to today's multi-million dollar productions shown in megaplexes. ...
  • Book coverWho is Sherlock?: essays on identity in modern Holmes adaptations by Lynnette Porter, ed.
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .S5 W56 2016
    ISBN: 9780786499076
    Nearly 130 years after the introduction of Sherlock Holmes to readers, the Great Detective's identity is being questioned, deconstructed, and reconstructed more than ever. Readers and audiences, not to mention scholars and critics, continue to analyze who Sherlock Holmes is or has become and why and how his identity has been formed in a specific way.
  • Wuthering Heights on film and television : a journey across time and cultures by Valérie V. Hazette
    Call Number: Baker/Berry PR 4172 .W73 H429 2015
    ISBN: 9781783204922
    Emily Brontë's beloved novel Wuthering Heights has been adapted countless times for film and television over the decades. Valérie V.Hazette offers here a historical and transnational study of those adaptations, presenting the afterlife of the book as a series of cultural journeys that focuses as much on the readers, filmmakers, and viewers as on the dramas themselves. ...

Other library resource(s)

  • Resource logoAdaptation from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Thomas Leitch, Kyle Meikle
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    Studies of cinematic adaptations—films based, as the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences puts it, on material originally presented in another medium—are scarcely a century old. Even so, particular studies of adaptation, the process by which texts in a wide range of media are transformed into films (and more recently into other texts that are not necessarily films), cannot be properly understood without reference to the specific period they were produced in. ...
  • Resource logoShakespeare on film from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Russell Jackson
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    In the 1980s the study of cinema adaptations of Shakespeare was transformed by the advent of domestic video recording and the increased availability of productions on videotape. Students, teachers, and scholars who had previously relied on public showings or the hire of 16mm prints could now access films in the study or at home as well as in libraries and, crucially, could also view them repeatedly and shot-by-shot without specialized equipment. The volume of publication of academic monographs, journal articles, critical anthologies, and study aids has kept pace with the increasing availability of older films, as well as new productions. ...
  • Cover ArtShakespeare uncovered by Blakeway Productions
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #17780
    ISBN: 9781608838530
    Six episodes combine history, biography, iconic performances, new analysis, and the personal passion of their celebrated hosts (Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi, Trevor Nunn, Joely Richardson, and David Tennant) to tell the story behind the stories of Shakespeare's greatest plays.
  • Cover ArtShakespeare uncovered. Series 2 by Blakeway Productions
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #20283
    ISBN: 9781627892377
    Six celebrated hosts to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare's greatest plays, revealing not just the elements in the play, but the history of the play itself. What sparked the creation of each of these works? Where did Shakespeare get his plots, and what cultural, political and religious factors influenced his writing? Why has this body of work endured so thoroughly? What, in the end, makes Shakespeare so great?

Adapted TV programs

Here is a short list of adapted television located in the Jones Media Center or available through streaming. Check the online catalog for more titles.

  • Cover artThe hollow crown. The complete series
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #16838
    The Hollow Crown is a new adaptation of Shakespeare's tetralogy of history plays comprising the Henriad for the BBC's 2012 Cultural Olympiad: King Richard II; King Henry IV, Part 1; King Henry IV, Part 2; King Henry V. The plays chronicle a continuous period in British history from the end of the 14th century to the aftermath of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Together, the plays comprise a story with recurring themes of power struggles, redemption, family conflict and betrayal.
  • Cover artThe hollow crown. The war of the roses
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #20279
    The concluding cycle of The Hollow Crown, subtitled The Wars of the Roses. Henry VI, Parts I and II and Richard III tell the story of an exceptionally turbulent period in British history. These exhilarating and emotionally charged films feature some of Shakespeare's most eloquent and powerful language.
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre by David Hugh Jones
    • Video
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Streaming video
    When Pericles discovers the terrible answer to King Antiochus' riddle, he flees for his life. In self exile from Tyre, he encounters famine, shipwreck, love and fatherhood ... but in his desire to return home, he once again jeopardises his life and those he loves.
  • ShakespeaRe-told. Much ado about nothing by David Nicholls & Brian Percival
    • Video
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Streaming video
    Set in a local news studio, with Beatrice and Benedick as feuding anchors. Hero, the weathergirl and daughter of station manager Leonard, becomes engaged to Claude, the sports presenter. Jealous visual effects manager Don plots to break up Hero and Claude, whilst the others attempt to get Beatrice and Benedick together. Hero and Claude eventually repair their friendship, though Hero refuses to consider marriage again, the ending is left ambiguous about their future as they are the best man and maid of honour (respectively) for the finale: the wedding of Beatrice and Benedick.
  • Cover artWilliam Shakespeare's Twelfth night; Macbeth
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #7071
    ISBN: 9780780029682
    Twelfth Night: the adaptation is set in contemporary London. Macbeth: the adaptation is set in a timeless zone somewhere in the twentieth century against a raw, urban industrial environment.

Internet resource(s)

  • The 50 greatest literary TV adaptations ever, ranked from Literary Hub
    I don’t know about you, but a lot of my favorite television shows used to be books. By now, it’s a cliché (and definitely unnecessary) to point out how often great movies and television shows are based on literary properties, but I have to point it out to get on to the next, also obvious bit: the fact that some of them are better than others. Which is why, following several heated discussions in the Literary Hub office, I have decided to rank them. ...
    more...less...
    {Emily Temple, 2/27/2019}
  • << Previous: Television adaptations
  • Next: TV ratings >>
  • Last Updated: May 20, 2025 4:52 PM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/television
  • Print Page
Login to LibApps
Report a problem
Subjects: Film and Media Studies
Tags: censorship, children's television, chinese television, global television, humanities, LGBTQIA+, new_media, public-access television, quality television, radio, representation, reviews, sports, television ratings, television theory, tv, tv advertising, tv ratings, women, writing for television

Dartmouth Libraries

  • Baker-Berry Library
    • Book Arts Workshop
    • Evans Map Room
    • Jones Media Center
  • Health Sciences and Biomedical Libraries
  • Feldberg Business & Engineering Library
  • Rauner Special Collections Library
  • Records Management
  • Sherman Art Library

About Us

  • Staff Directory
  • Subject Librarians
  • Library Departments
  • Policies
  • Employment
  • Accessibility
  • Federal Depository Library

Contact Us

  • 25 North Main Street
    Hanover, NH, USA 03755
  • Phone: 603-646-2567
  • Contact Us

Give Us Feedback

Dartmouth Libraries

Footer copyright

  • Dartmouth College
  • Copyright © 2025 Trustees of Dartmouth College
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
Privacy Policy