Sur la scène: adapting Balzac, Dumas and Zola on the stage

The French literary landscape of the nineteenth century is marked by a tremendous production of adaptations of plays based on novels or short stories. Hundreds of adaptations from authors such as Balzac, Dumas, Hugo and Zola were staged in Paris theatres throughout the century. At times perceived as a form of plagiarism or as an outrageous merchandising of literature, these adaptations provoked heated discussions between literary critics, novelists and playwrights of the time. We will examine how the staging of works such as Dumas’ Le Comte de Monte-Cristo or Zola’s L’Assommoir gave rise to a great number of publications where topics such as authorship, censorship and literary genres were passionately debated.