okay, without looking it up...

[clauclauclaudia]

Does this usage of eponymous seem okay to you or not? Why?

[blah blah Chekhov on film] "Based on his eponymous 1891 novella, THE DUEL gives life to a classic Chekhovian tale...."

All right. Look it up if you want to, but let me know if you do.

I'm screening comments for a bit to get independent answers, but I'll unscreen them soonish. [Edit: slow unscreening now complete.]

Comments

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

I'd say no, for two reasons. One is that I always think of "eponymous" as referring to things that are very different from their namesake (example: Frankfurt (a city) is the eponym of frankfurter (a food)). A film and a book are the same thing in different media. Also, the usage is bizarre: "Based on his eponymous 1891 novel" makes it almost sound as if the novel (the antecedent) was somehow planned to have a namesake ("gee, I think I'll write an eponymous novel!"), whereas of course anything is only eponymous after the fact. I'd say it's a case of strained diction from someone who likes the word and forced a fit where "the novel of the same name" would probably have worked better.

[clauclauclaudia]

Mm, yes. Your last sentence matches my initial reaction precisely. Outside chance they think the word is an exact replacement for "of the same name" or something--thesaurus disease.

It was, btw, an e-mail from the Brattle Theatre.