In Maggie Gyllenhaal's 2021 adaptation of Elena Ferrante's 'The Lost Daughter,' the last sentence of the book ("I am dead, but I'm fine") changes as Leda says, "I'm alive." By changing the death that Leda's experience motherhood entails, Gyllenhaal creates her own Leda, a woman who is different from that in the Ferrante's text.

When the televised adaptation of Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend makes Turin the home of Elena Greco’s future husband’s family, it undoes the emancipatory energy the city generates in Ferrante’s novels.

In my last post, I discussed the unfortunate marriage of Emily Dickinson's poems to "The Yellow Rose of Texas."  This post and its successor turn to an equally unlikely pairing of poem and music that produced an extraordinarily serendipitous outcome, one that ought to lead to a recording contract for one of my students.  Before I get there, I'd like to provide a little background.