Pride and Prejudice. Translating and Adapting Lydia Bennet

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyse how Lydia Bennet, one of the main characters in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, has been translated into Spanish and adapted to an audiovisual medium. In order to do this analysis, a translation (Ana María de la Fuente Rodríguez’s rendering, 2009) and an adaptation (The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, 2012-13) have been chosen. To achieve my purpose, Lydia’s idolect and what other characters and the narrator say about her, as well as the strategies followed by the Spanish translator, will be analysed in order to prove that language is used to characterized the characters and to see how language can influence our view of a character. In a different section, Lydia’s role in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and how the character has been adapted will also be addressed. This adaptation is a web series set in California in the 21st century so several changes have been introduced to adapt the story for this specific context and for a young audience. Furthermore, the story is told through different platforms (YouTube, Twitter or Tumblr, for example) so fans can actually interact with the series and the main characters and the use of transmedia should also be addressed. Finally, we cannot forget that every adaptation is different and that they can have an impact in our view of certain events or characters so a short survey will be carried out in order to discover what people think about Lydia.