Okay, I know this is late, but it's intentional, (sounds crazy I know). I decided to wait for this post until I had some solid information rather than just run my mouth (or keyboard). Okay so, I did something new...I got a book from Interlibrary Loan. Huzzah! First. If you haven't tried this, do it. They are fairly quick in getting you the book and its just like things would be if you were to get a book from our own library, they handle everything behind the scenes. You just have to pick it up when it's there, return it when it's due, and hand it to the security guards so it doesn't beep on the way out. I know you're dying to know what book is so important that I had to send for it. Well, it's called "Re-Playing Shakespeare in Asia" and it consists of dozens of articles by the scholars that I've been seeking out and contacting. Great right? One of the articles is by Tapati Gupta and discusses Shakespeare in India specifically. She discussed how Romeo and Juliet was put into a Muslim-Hindu perspective. And something I observed was that Merchant of Venice was most popular in India at the peak of Muslim-Hindu conflict. Gupta discussed how King Lear has been adapted to be about a senile Raja who has lost control over his family and has lost the loyalty of his daughters. She discussed a few other plays, that I won't go into detail about now. But it's all been very intriguing.
Also, I talked to a previous Shakespeare professor, not necessarily about my research but about Shakespeare and he said that Desdemona and Cordelia, to him, seem to be the most beloved female characters in Shakespeare. They are strong yet victimized women and people love them. I can't help but wonder if this is at least part of the reason King Lear and Othello are heavily studied in India, because of the feminine reinforcement.
I think, perhaps, what I want to look at is how society adapts Shakespeare to meet their needs and experience. Isn't that why we read? To relate to something? So, here's where I need help. I need input. Do you think this is something worth looking at and why? Is it something I should pursue or do you see other topics in my research that are more worth pursuing? I'm looking forward to hearing your responses.
Also, I had a couple ideas I've come across reinforce this thought that we adapt Shakespeare to meet our needs and to council our separate societies. On this site that one of my contacts created I found a page that contains a list of different countries and how Shakespeare is studied in each one respectively. Possibly one of the most interesting things that I found was about the Arab-World Shakespeare. Read this!
In the century since then, a vast variety of directors and adapters in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and other Arab countries have produced versions of Shakespeare’s plays to speak to their own and audiences and circumstances. Othello has been adapted as a prooftext about Orientalism or a tragedy about gender violence. Hamlet has been played as a Che Guevara in doublet-and-hose, his “To be or not to be” interpreted as a cry for justice in what many theatre-makers see as rotten states and out-of-joint times [see lecture on this]. Julius Caesar, while rarely produced, has recurred frequently in political discussions about despotism and democracy. The Merchant of Venice has not escaped polemical appropriation by various sides of the debate about Zionism’s role in the Middle East. Romeo and Juliet has been staged as a demonstration of the dangers of blood feuds and arranged marriages. Taking a different approach, a 1994 Romeo and Juliet production in East Jerusalem (co-directed by the Israeli Eran Baniel and the Palestinian Fouad Awad) had the Capulets played by Israeli Jewish actors speaking Hebrew and their rivals the Montagues played by Palestinian actors speaking Arabic.
Moving on, in class a while back in our little discussion groups Carlie mentioned that there's an area in Idaho that has taken Romeo and Juliet out of their curriculum because of the high suicide rates.
On the site that I mentioned above I also found something about how poorly Shakespeare was received until the plays being performed were performed like melodramas. "The very first Brazilian Shakespearean performances by João Caetano occurred as early as 1835 and were attempts at a Brazilian performance free from French influence: Hamlet was enacted in the cities of Niterói and Rio de Janeiro, employing a Brazilian translation by Oliveira e Silva which was done from the original English text. The play was not well received by the public; according to João Caetano, this was so because the public was not ready for Shakespeare, being used to melodramas instead. Thus, when five years later, in 1840, João Caetano tried Hamlet one more time, he turned to the French adaptation of Jean-François Ducis which transformed the tragedy into a melodrama."
I just can't help but think that every country, every area wants a Shakespeare to instruct them. They want his plays to give the answers and instructs. If they need governmental help they'll read Julius Caesar. If they're interested in racism they'll read the Merchant of Venice. Gender? Othello. If they're ruled by Kings they'll like Lear and so on. We read the Shakespeare we need. We read the Shakespeare that tells us about our culture. By reading Shakespeare cross-culturally we universalize and stretch the meaning perhaps far beyond what he originally intended but that's what we need. Society needs Shakespeare, so they create him. They give his plays a meaning unique to their ideals, and then learn from the play they've marked as important literature.
Also, I talked to a previous Shakespeare professor, not necessarily about my research but about Shakespeare and he said that Desdemona and Cordelia, to him, seem to be the most beloved female characters in Shakespeare. They are strong yet victimized women and people love them. I can't help but wonder if this is at least part of the reason King Lear and Othello are heavily studied in India, because of the feminine reinforcement.
I think, perhaps, what I want to look at is how society adapts Shakespeare to meet their needs and experience. Isn't that why we read? To relate to something? So, here's where I need help. I need input. Do you think this is something worth looking at and why? Is it something I should pursue or do you see other topics in my research that are more worth pursuing? I'm looking forward to hearing your responses.
Also, I had a couple ideas I've come across reinforce this thought that we adapt Shakespeare to meet our needs and to council our separate societies. On this site that one of my contacts created I found a page that contains a list of different countries and how Shakespeare is studied in each one respectively. Possibly one of the most interesting things that I found was about the Arab-World Shakespeare. Read this!
In the century since then, a vast variety of directors and adapters in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and other Arab countries have produced versions of Shakespeare’s plays to speak to their own and audiences and circumstances. Othello has been adapted as a prooftext about Orientalism or a tragedy about gender violence. Hamlet has been played as a Che Guevara in doublet-and-hose, his “To be or not to be” interpreted as a cry for justice in what many theatre-makers see as rotten states and out-of-joint times [see lecture on this]. Julius Caesar, while rarely produced, has recurred frequently in political discussions about despotism and democracy. The Merchant of Venice has not escaped polemical appropriation by various sides of the debate about Zionism’s role in the Middle East. Romeo and Juliet has been staged as a demonstration of the dangers of blood feuds and arranged marriages. Taking a different approach, a 1994 Romeo and Juliet production in East Jerusalem (co-directed by the Israeli Eran Baniel and the Palestinian Fouad Awad) had the Capulets played by Israeli Jewish actors speaking Hebrew and their rivals the Montagues played by Palestinian actors speaking Arabic.
Moving on, in class a while back in our little discussion groups Carlie mentioned that there's an area in Idaho that has taken Romeo and Juliet out of their curriculum because of the high suicide rates.
On the site that I mentioned above I also found something about how poorly Shakespeare was received until the plays being performed were performed like melodramas. "The very first Brazilian Shakespearean performances by João Caetano occurred as early as 1835 and were attempts at a Brazilian performance free from French influence: Hamlet was enacted in the cities of Niterói and Rio de Janeiro, employing a Brazilian translation by Oliveira e Silva which was done from the original English text. The play was not well received by the public; according to João Caetano, this was so because the public was not ready for Shakespeare, being used to melodramas instead. Thus, when five years later, in 1840, João Caetano tried Hamlet one more time, he turned to the French adaptation of Jean-François Ducis which transformed the tragedy into a melodrama."
I just can't help but think that every country, every area wants a Shakespeare to instruct them. They want his plays to give the answers and instructs. If they need governmental help they'll read Julius Caesar. If they're interested in racism they'll read the Merchant of Venice. Gender? Othello. If they're ruled by Kings they'll like Lear and so on. We read the Shakespeare we need. We read the Shakespeare that tells us about our culture. By reading Shakespeare cross-culturally we universalize and stretch the meaning perhaps far beyond what he originally intended but that's what we need. Society needs Shakespeare, so they create him. They give his plays a meaning unique to their ideals, and then learn from the play they've marked as important literature.
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