Creative Aesthetics of Literary Adaptations in Thomas Southerne’s Adaptation of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko or the History of the Royal Slave

Adaptation is re-writing a work that has been previously published in a
new form. In this research, Aphrah Behn’s narrative work, Oroonoko and
Thomas Southern’s adaptation of the text are read to examine the creative
aesthetics of Southern’s Oroonoko as a literary adaptation. This
qualitative research, through comparative and contrastive analysis,
argues that Southerne’s adaptation of Behn’s prose helps to emphasize
and escalate Behn’s thematic concerns especially the anti-slavery subject
matter prominent in the narrative. By extension, Southerne’s adaptation
also exposes the pretensions of English society, especially the women,
through the characters of the Weldonn sisters. In conclusion, this paper
asserts that literary adaptations possess creative aesthetics and strongly
affirms that the playwright and the prose narrator share the same
responsibilities to entertain, criticize or condemn any identified wrong in
society.

Keywords: Aphra Behn, Creative Aesthetics, Literary Adaptation,
Deviation, Oroonoko, Thomas Southerne