World literature in graphic novels and graphic novels as world literature

Monika Schmitz-Emans

pp. 219-238

in: Weigui Fang (ed), Tensions in world literature, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

In the last decades, graphic story-telling has been recognized as an important genre of world literature, according to Monika Schmitz-Emans. The graphic novel as a format of adapting literary works attracts considerable attention. Referring to several examples, Schmitz-Emans gives an outline of the development of graphic adaptations of world literature as a genre, discussing different types, strategies of adaptation and drawing styles. While the graphic novel can compete with the traditional literary work thanks to its specific art, it can challenge above and beyond—by way of parody and deconstruction—even canonized masterpieces, and transcends in this way the gap between mass culture and high-brow culture.

Cited authors

Schmitz-Emans Monika