Shakespeare's Play Research Articles

Interpretations of W. Shakespeare's Plays in St. Petersburg Drama Theaters in early 21st Century. On the Trend Towards Performativity in the Art of Stage Design

Interpretations of W. Shakespeare's Plays in St. Petersburg Drama Theaters in early 21st Century. On the Trend Towards Performativity in the Art of Stage Design

Fearful Symmetry: Shakespeare’s <i>Dramatis Personae</i> in <i>Hamlet</i>

This research aims to make a parallel and determine the symmetry between the main male characters of the Shakespearian play “The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. For this purpose, each important character is analysed in-depth with the use of the primary text and other critical views. The approach used in this paper was based on the primary source, by the employment of quotes and lines, verses and how they manage to be interpreted regarding the portrayal of the cast. There are a variety of ways in which quotes like “A little more than kin and less than kind” might be emphasized, and through the stylistic art of interpretation, the reader as well as the critic can bring new senses and meanings to a certain something. There are also the religious and philosophical aspects of the characters that are exploited in the paper and analysed through metaphorical and figurative language. Applying a developed conceptual framework combined with the opinion of other critics of Shakespeare leads to the multiple interpretations and variables of this play. Not only is it full of symbols and presents an aspect of universality unlike any Shakespearean tragedy, but it also introduces the reader to a combination of Baroque Disenchantment and typical Elizabethan drama. The emphasis of the paper is on the specific characteristics of each character in relation to the general frame and in relation to the other characters. The aim of the paper is to dissipate the blurred lines between appearance and essence and to focus on the in-depth analysis of the characters, who create the symmetry and parallelism which widens the Shakespearean universe of knowledge and literary creation. “Hamlet”, as a literary piece, is Shakespeare’s most complex tragedy. The rationale for choosing it is to highlight the universality of the play, to make the reader sympathise and look at their own reflection and think about the instances where their actions overlapped or coincided with the characters’. Tragedy, like any other literary genre, was born out of real-life situations, and readers should be aware that fiction can surpass the page and turn into reality.

Hafez Ibrahim's translation of the monologue of the gagger in Shakespeare's Macbeth

One of the most challenging and multifaceted tasks a translator can do is translating poetry. This is because form and content in poetry have a distinct and interdependent relationship that allows the reader to experience a unique emotional reaction. Reproducing the same emotional effect on the TT reader is the most controversial aspect, resulting in the widespread assumption among scholars that poetry is untranslatable. Poetry translation needs more effort and creativity to convey the beauty and power of the style as well as the intended message of the ST. The main aim of the present study is to analyze Hafez Ibrahim's poetic translation into Arabic of the famous soliloquy of the protagonist in the scene of the dagger in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. Employing a descriptive-analytical approach to compare the ST and TT texts, the study arrived at the conclusion that the translator was adequately successful in keeping the subject matter, the general atmosphere, and the tone of the original text. On the other hand, he chose to "Arabize" the metaphorical language of Shakespeare to make it closer to Arab readers' sensibilities.

Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed: Dramatic Encounters between Classic and Adaptation, Life and Art, Freedom and Imprisonment

This paper examines Margaret Atwood’s novel Hag-Seed (2016) as a metatextual adaptation of Shakespeare’s literary classic The Tempest. The terms “adaptation” and “classic” are employed to explain the relation of Atwood’s work to its source material. The performance of The Tempest prepared by the characters of the novel that engages convicts is a form of multi-media interactive theater, and the classical text of the Shakespearean play is considered a form of “sacra” (Turner), which has educational and utilitarian purposes. Michel Foucault’s analysis of prison, his concept of “heterotopia”, and Victor Turner’s concept of “liminality” are introduced to discuss the convicts participating in a theatrical workshop as liminal individuals during the ritual of transition while in the heterotopian space of a prison.

Un-taming the Shrew

This article discusses the adaptation film, Shakespeare Retold: The Taming of the Shrew, as compared to original play, The Taming of the Shrew, by Shakespeare by highlighting the different modern perspective of the film. Likely to be interpreted as a valuable addition to the play with the ending it proposes and the way it handles the issue of taming, the film brings the play to the attention of the modern audience by clarifying the vague details and contextualising it in the modern English. In this respect, the article aims to bring the film and the play into focus by introducing a fresh and lively re-interpretation of The Taming of the Shrew to the Shakespearean drama studies.

Disruptive Domesticity in Shakespearean Drama

Book review:
 Whipday, Emma. Shakespeare’s Domestic Tragedies: Violence in the Early Modern Home. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019. 262 pages. ISBN 9781108474030. Pbk. £29.99

Applying Newmark's Translational procedures in translating Original metaphor in Shakespearean play: Macbeth

Applying Newmark's Translational procedures in translating Original metaphor in Shakespearean play: Macbeth

Gender and Literature – Is Gender Gendered? Female Protagonists in Macbeth (1606), Thelma and Louise (1991) and A Doll’s House (1879) – Three Different Genres of Literature across Centuries

This paper examines how men and women have been conventionally portrayed in gender stereotypes in various genres among different cultures through centuries in world literature, with reference to the classical Shakespearean play Macbeth (1606) by the British playwright William Shakespeare, the Hollywood road movie Thelma and Louise (1991) directed by Ridley Scott and A Doll’s House (1879) written by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. The research will explore the common themes embodied by the notion of gender almost in all literature work in the world which include patriarchy and order, masculinity and femininity, fabrication of identities, and binary opposition with the close textual analysis of the process of self-discovery and empowerment by the female protagonists, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Thelma and Louise in Thelma and Louise and Nora in A Doll’s House through the eyes of the male authors, namely playwrights and film director. By comparing the fates of aforementioned female protagonists in the three endings, the actual autonomy that women can take the lead in their life or act outside the normalized gender binaries is further studied. With the analysis of the literary devices and the depiction of the female characters’ psychological change with the visualization of symbols and attires in the texts, the relationship between form and content is also investigated. There is also the discourse analysis on the use of gendered language through soliloquies and dialogues, implication of gender roles in society and culture and the consequences of these females in transcending the gendered roles.

Macbeth apropos to Rupert Goold's and Gregory Doran's stagecraft: Equivocation, violence, and vulnerability

If Macbeth is Shakespeare's play of equivocation and doubleness, Rupert Goold's and Gregory Doran's productions were informed by like concerns, even having double performance lives on stage and on film. Doran's production followed along the lines of Trevor Nunn's 1976 staging, which highlighted the interiority of the Macbeths in the intimate space of The Other Place. Besides creating a sense of intimacy on the Swan's stage, Doran underscored the play's political relevance. Goold's mise-en-scène, also performed in an intimate space, pushed further Doran's militaristic staging. Jan Kott's reading of Macbeth as a ‘nightmare’ also offers a yardstick for production choices.

The Merchant of Venice and the Demise of Hospitality

ABSTRACT The Merchant of Venice explores usury and the violation of hospitality’s codes in a world where hospitality is no longer a charitable act. Rather, money is the primary motivation and relationships revolve around commercial transactions not social bonds. Robert Wilson’s Elizabethan morality play The Three Ladies of London provides an important antecedent to Shakespeare’s play in its depictions of Usury, Hospitality, and the usurer-Jew Gerontus. The flesh bond and the wealthy Lady of Belmont appear in one of the probable sources for Shakespeare's play: Giovanni Fiorentino’s medieval Italian novella Il Pecorone. In The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare seems to have developed from Il Pecorone the idea that insincere hospitality can have serious consequences. Shakespeare also appears to consolidate distinct concepts from Wilson’s Three Ladies by reshaping the figure of Usury (the sin of medieval morality) and Gerontus (the reasonable Jewish moneylender), into Shylock, a complex figure who elicits both sympathy and revulsion. Where Hospitality is murdered by Usury in Wilson’s play, Shakespeare presents Shylock’s isolation in terms of alterity, dehumanisation, and social exclusion in a world where loyalty and moral obligations have been replaced by the demands of the market.

Troilus and Cressida's Folio Prologue in the Poets’ War: Shakespeare, Jonson, Marston

Although many scholars have denigrated Troilus and Cressida, the Folio version of the play—with a prologue—offers a more tractable, even winsome play than does the quarto version. As a buffer between the real world of an audience and the imagined world of a play, the prologue adjusts the expectations of an audience, highlighting at once its own potency and the interpretive potential of this textual difference between quarto and Folio. This Prologue conveys an appeal neither obsequious nor arrogant—as do its respective models in John Marston's Antonio and Mellida and Ben Jonson's Poetaster—but rhetorically sinuous and eminently tactful, at once calming the war of the theaters and previewing the subtle tonal shifts in the play that follows it. In Poetaster, Jonson presents “An armed Prologue,” which has often been mentioned as a precursor to Shakespeare's Troilus Prologue, but I argue that its surface similarities only highlight its differences in goals, methods, and most importantly tone. And by contrast with the epilogue in Antonio and Mellida, the Troilus Prologue presents a more subtly nuanced attempt to win the favor of an audience not wholly by self-effacement but by complex honesty and mimetic rhetoric, counterbalanced to anticipate the perplexing world of Shakespeare's play.

A Study on Sentimental Analysis of Novels and Shakespeare’s Play

Abstract: The current work is a sentimental analysis study of Shakespeare's play, depicting the character-to-character analysis. The emotional sentimental analysis of Harry potter’s novels is also analyzed. The current work exemplifies a complete evaluation of the techniques required for sentimental analysis, as well as their practical application. Because of the planned discourse of this literary format, it is possible to make assumptions about who is taking part in a conversation. Once it is known to whom a character is speaking, the emotions in his or her speech can be assigned to that individual, enabling for the generation of lists of a character's foes and allies as well as the pinpointing of situations crucial to a character's emotional development. In addition, the Serendio group's framework for estimating utilizing dictionary-based methods is employed.

Visions and Faces of the Tragic: The Mimesis of Tragedy and the Folly of Salvation in Early Christian Literature. By Paul M. Blowers

According to the preface (pp. vii–ix) this book has been much influenced by the author’s own involvement in Shakespearean drama (a performance of Hamlet in particular), which, in his own words, gave him ‘the artist’s eye, the intuitions of the dramaturge, and the strivings of the director and actor to understand dramatic interpretation and performance from the inside out’ (p. vii). The book draws on these inspirations and is therefore not merely a technical study combining insights from theatre history with patristic, early Christian, and late antique studies, but an oeuvre close to the author’s heart. It is divided into seven chapters. In chapter 1 some more general ‘preliminary considerations’ on ‘tragical vision in early Christian literature’ (pp. 1–6) are followed by reflections on tragedy in Greek and Roman culture (pp. 7–19), its various forms, its forms of reception and interpretation, and its ‘cultural utility’. One section focuses specifically on...

The Experience of Poetry: From Homer’s Listeners to Shakespeare’s Readers

The Experience of Poetry: From Homer’s Listeners to Shakespeare’s Readers

Women as Heroes in Shakespearean Drama

Shakespeare studies Nature in the context of human behaviour. His drama deals with transformations and he displays these changes on both social and personal levels through alternating the graphic images from characters to situation. In an authoritarian society where lives of women were governed by a belief system which resulted out of Nature’s disposition of preordained roles in society, the portrayal of dominating female voices would have bothered many. Shakespearean drama is a protest against the society which is always dominated by the destructive forces of male paranoia, egocentrism, patriarchal instinct of exploitation of the weak, male sexual anxiety and corrupt abuse of rules of justice by the powerful. A study of the female mind presented in Shakespearean drama is seen at its best in The Winter’s Tale. The following article is an attempt to explore some of the aspects of Womanhood in Shakespearean art.

Othello as a play-within-the-film in post-independence Indian cinema1

This article aims to explore the appropriation of Othello as a play-within-the-film in three Indian movies: Anbu (), Saptapadi () and Ratha Thilagam (). Anbu and Ratha Thilagam are Tamil movies, whereas Saptapadi is an example of Bengali cinema. In the three films, the same scene from Shakespeare’s Othello – the murder scene – is performed as part of college theatricals. Although the films immediately associate Shakespeare with education, their appropriation of Othello goes beyond a college performance and provides insight on the main plot. The performance of the murder scene foreshadows the rest of the plot (Anbu and Ratha Thilagam), and explores racial dynamics and miscegenation in relation to the protagonists in Saptapadi. Anbu, Saptapadi and Ratha Thilagam introduce variations to the plot to add new layers of meaning. As the three films are set in postcolonial India, the use of the Shakespearean play inevitably becomes a site of negotiation between colonizers and colonized; the three films negotiate changing controversial political issues across the time period to which they all belong. Anbu, Saptapadi and Ratha Thilagam generate then a new understanding of Othello, which becomes paramount to trace the evolution of Shakespeare in postcolonial India.

Agency of the Witches and Language Play in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

This study undertakes an analysis of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) and its principal characters vis-à-vis their immediate appeal and identification with the Shakespearean audience during the first-ever performance of the play in the early years of the seventeenth century. The role of the witches (or the weird sisters) in orchestrating the destinies of the characters and also the events of the play by employing their astute and skillful use of language is a significant point of discussion in this study. In this regard, a discussion on the historical aspects of kingship and witchcraft in relation to the then king of England, James I, and on the possible impact of those factors upon the staging of the Shakespearean play Macbeth in the royal court is also carried out here. The study argues that the binaries of good and evil or light and darkness are relative categories that often feed into each other. Equivocation, as a device of language play, is analyzed here both as part of the witches’ machinations within the play and as a subterfuge for political gains by humans in the world outside it. These two worlds seem to merge into each other within the narrative of the play and thus appear before the reader/audience with all their inherent complexities and imperfections. Towards the end of this study, a brief historical overview of the refashioning of Shakespeare through adaptations and reworkings in foreign locations, particularly in India, is also provided to emphasize the allegorical and multivalent nature of his plays.

Reading Milton reading Shakespeare politically: what the identification of Milton’s First Folio does and does not tell us

ABSTRACT The question of how Milton read Shakespeare has been put in a new light by the astonishing identification in 2019 of Milton’s copy of the Shakespeare First Folio in the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia First Folio contains over 600 instances of lines and passages that have been scored or bracketed and over 120 instances of textual emendation, convincingly ascribed to Milton’s hand, most probably between the late 1620s and the early 1640s. This essay considers how much the markings in the Folio can tell us, focusing on the method of textual collation on display, which is cause for reflection on how Shakespeare was viewed in learned circles in early Stuart England. It also considers what the Folio is not able to tell us about how Milton engaged with Shakespearean drama politically, both in his prose and the poems, including Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

“All the charms of Sycorax – toads, beetles, bats – light on you”

Aimé Césaire, a Martiniquais poet, writer, and politician, makes the implicit themes of decolonialization in The Tempest explicit within the canon of his 1969 play, Une tempête. The roots, however, of decolonization must have already been present in the original play, The Tempest, for Césaire to make this connection. Using Shakespeare's play as his foundation, Césaire simply amplifies both the colonization and the decolonization of these characters and the island where the play is set. Through his adaptation, Aimé Césaire foregrounds Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a decolonial work. In this paper, I will discuss the colonialism in Shakespeare’s original play, The Tempest, and juxtapose it with the colonialism in Césaire’s adaptation, Une tempête. Using this as a foundation, I will then analyze the implicit and explicit decolonialism in both plays. Through this paper, I wish to discussion how understandings and readings of Shakespeare’s plays to take on new life and new meaning; this results in exploration and conversation, allowing scholars and students to unpack the impacts of the issues his works consider in their own writing and their own lives.

SHAKESPEARE VE EGEMENLİK: MACBETH’İN BİYOPOLİTİK BİR OKUMASI

Biopolitics has brought new perspectives on power relations in society with the conceptualization of Michelle Foucault. Although the history of the concept goes back to the past, biopolitics has been used to analyze the power and social power relations in many areas from body control to population politics, thanks to Foucault. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has carried the concept of biopolitics to another point and contributed to the concept of biopolitics with his studies on sovereignty. Unlike Foucault, who claims that biopolitics is a modern thought, Agamben traces biopolitics in ancient texts. In his book Homo Sacer, Agamben allows us to reflect on the limits of sovereignty with the concept of bare life. Agamben searches for the holy man who can be killed but not sacrificed in Roman Law and makes analyzes on social power relations and sovereignty through this concept. In this article, it is aimed to make a biopolitical reading of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, based on Agamben's analysis of the Homo Sacer. As Macbeth kills King Duncan and becomes king himself, his struggle with the ghost of sovereignty begins. While this article seeks the reasons for Macbeth's inability to legitimize his power as the possessor of sovereignty and power in Elizabethan political theology and ideological structure, it reveals, in a biopolitical reading, that Macbeth has fallen into the position of the Homo Sacer, who cannot be sacrificed but is legitimate to be killed, that the sovereign is not above sovereignty, and that the king's mystical existence is separated from bodily existence. It is intended to analyze that with the killing of the king, Macbeth seeks to retain sovereignty while trying to cope with the pain of breaking the sacred order as an object of the dominant ideology. In this article, the reason why Macbeth's sovereignty cannot be legitimized is discussed based on the argument that power has a productive rather than an oppressive nature, while examining how his position has transformed into the Homo Sacer in Agamben's theory.