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1

Reinscribing Sexuality: Manga Versions of Romeo and Juliet

100%

Şerban A.

Romanian Journal of English Studies

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2012

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vol. 9

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issue 1

335-350

EN

Designed to familiarize the younger audience with the Bard’s work, while at the same time catering to their tastes and interests, not only have Shakespearean adaptations moved the original plots to unusual milieus and exotic cultures, but have also ‘translated’ them to new media. This paper analyzes the portrayal of sexuality in two transmediations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The paper compares and contrasts two manga versions of the play (a British and a Japanese one), aiming to highlight the ways in which the “star crossed lovers’” relationship has been adapted and appropriated by the two cultures in the twentyfirst century.

2

The Shakesepare Brand in Contemporary “Fair Verona”

100%

Oggiano E.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance

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2021

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vol. 23

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issue 38

109-125

EN

The idea that Shakespeare belongs to the world is certainly not new. From the beginning of his afterlife as a dramatist two issues have been consistently put forward by his contemporaries: 1) his art’s universality-for Ben Jonson, Shakespeare was the one “To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe”-and 2) his ability in appropriating foreign exotic environments which have notoriously characterised most of his plays. The value of such claims, which seem to be so present to us, helped to identify Shakespeare as an ‘universal’ icon whose work transcends time and space, gradually fostering, in and outside Britain, the so-called ‘Bardification of culture’, a phenomenon which persists, even more powerfully, nowadays. This study examines the different ways through which Verona has contributed in popularizing and elaborating the myth of Romeo and Juliet into a variety of formats suitable for the tourism market. By taking into account the so-called ‘Shakespace’ phenomenon, it focuses on what I have labelled as the ‘R&J-influenced spaces’ which account for a number of civic, cultural, and narrative spaces generated by and constructed upon the myth of the Veronese lovers.

3

Metanarratives and Storytelling in Contemporary Mainstream Popular Music: Romeo and Juliet in the Making of the Star Persona

100%

Viñuela E.

Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture

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2020

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issue 10

209-222

EN

This article analyzes how mainstream artists respond to the dynamics of online fan communities, developing complex metanarratives that interrelate their songs and music videos with their “personal” activity on social media. Audiences analyze in depth and discuss each release, contributing to its viralization on the internet. However, these strategies need strong narratives that allow convincing developments and transmedia storytelling, and this is where literature becomes a significant source of inspiration. I argue that the assumption (or subversion) of popular literary characters and narratives contributes to a positioning of artists in the music scene and facilitates their “reading” by the audience. To illustrate this process, I analyze the references to Romeo and Juliet by mainstream pop artists in the last decade, paying special attention to Troye Sivan’s debut album Blue Neighborhood (2015), considered a homosexual version of Shakespeare’s drama, and to Halsey’s concept album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom (2017), understood as a queer version of the play. Both artists explained their personal reading of Shakespeare’s drama as a way of expressing their own feelings and experiences. These examples of metanarrative storytelling achieved their aim, and millions of fans engaged with both artists, discussing lyrics, photos and music videos related to Romeo and Juliet on social media.

4

Emerging postdramatic aesthetics and Shakespeare in Hungarian theatre

88%

Deres K.

Theatralia: Revue současného myšlení o divadelní kultuře (Theatralia: The revue of contemporary thought on theatre culture)

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2021

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vol. 24

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issue Special_Issue

105-120

EN

The essay aims at examining the ways postdramatic aesthetics meet Shakespearean plays in Hungarian theatre. Offering a context for postdramatic strategies in European theatre practices and touching upon its regional differences, a main goal is to analyse how postdramatic strategies affect the schemes of interpretation and reception in the Central European geopolitical region. Presenting two case studies of staging Romeo and Juliet on Hungarian stages between 1996 and 2019, the article argues that a new relation of visuality, performativity, and textuality, emerging in these productions, can lead to rediscovering and reinterpreting Shakespearean dramas after 1989.

5

From Romero to Romeo-Shakespeare’s Star-Crossed Lovers Meeting Zombedy in Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies

88%

Cieślak M.

Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture

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2021

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issue 11

157-177

EN

Since their first screen appearances in the 1930s, zombies have enjoyed immense cinematic popularity. Defined by Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead as mindless, violent, decaying and infectious, they successfully function as ultimate fiends in horror films. Yet, even those morbid undead started evolving into more appealing, individualized and even sympathetic characters, especially when the comic potential of zombies is explored. To allow a zombie to become a romantic protagonist, however, one that can love and be loved by a human, another evolutionary step had to be taken, one fostered by a literary association. This paper analyzes Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies, a 2013 film adaptation of Isaac Marion’s zombie novel inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It examines how Shakespeare’s Romeo helps transform the already evolved cinematic zombie into a romantic protagonist, and how Shakespearean love tragedy, with its rich visual cinematic legacy, can successfully locate a zombie narrative in the romantic comedy convention. Presenting the case of Shakespeare intersecting the zombie horror tradition, this paper illustrates the synergic exchanges of literary icons and the cinematic monstrous.

6

A tragedy tailored to the spirit of the times – Romeo and Juliet as interpreted by Franco Zeffirelli and Baz Luhrmann

76%

Śliwińska A.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2019

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vol. 26

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issue 35

219-229

PL

This article discusses two film adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, i.e. one directed by Franco Zeffirelli and the other by Baz Luhrmann. It covers the following aspects: the structure of both the drama and its two film adaptations, the characters’ creation, the choice of setting and screen time, and the function of tragedy. Shakespeare’s language is characterised by unparalleled wit and powers of observation, and the final form of his plays is a clear indication of his ambivalent attitude towards tradition and the rigid structure of the drama. By breaking with convention, favouring an episodic structure, and blending tragedy with comedy, Shakespeare always takes risks, in a similar vain to the two directors who decided to make film adaptations based on his plays. Each technical device the adaptors selected could have turned out to be a wonderful novelty or a total disaster. The strength of both Zeffirelli’s and Luhrman’s adaptations is their emphasis on love and youth, which thanks to their directorial skill is perfectly in tune with the spirit of their respective times.

7

Method-ising Cognitive Truth: The Paradigm of Subtext in Baz Luhrmann’s Silver-Screen Vision of Romeo and Juliet’s Wedding

75%

Litwin E.

Anglica Wratislaviensia

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2018

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issue 56

57 - 76

EN

A case study of the wedding scene in William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann (1996), this article is a hermeneutic exploration of the truth pursuits within the subtext from the empirical perspective of a practicing director and a semiotician, in accordance with the principles of the Method acting technique. The author proposes a new, space-negotiated definition of subtext as a separate cognitive unit, based on the multilayered interdependences within the directorial semiotic triad of word–emotional action–mise-en-scène. In a minute shot-by-shot analysis, the author examines the hermeneutic collocations in-between the elements of the triad, and demonstrates the ways cognitive spaces become subtextual statements within each shot, as well as how the internal subtexts shape the metasubtext of each shot in order to arrive at the megasubtext of the scene — and subsequently the total subtext of the entire story in a cultural text. Aspects of the evolution of the subtext representations are analyzed within the triad of word–emotional action–mise-en-scène, against the backdrop of the epistemological pursuits of the truth. How do we reach the truth in a cultural text? What components of the film language rule the expression of the truth in a cultural text?

8

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz as Translator of Shakespeare

75%

Romanowska A.

Anglica Wratislaviensia

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2018

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issue 56

119 - 132

EN

While theatre has always been the major force generating new translations of Shakespeare’s plays, the prerequisite assuring a successful (i.e. theatrically functional) rendering is the translator’s awareness of the theatrical potential of poetic drama. The combination of poetic and dramatic skills on the part of the translator, coupled with the interpretative reading that underlies all translation, provides a literary historian with interesting questions. How are the translator’s creative forces channelled to strike a balance between translating and playwrighting? To what extent should we perceive translated literature as an integral part of the writer–translator’s literary output? Is it possible to interpret one in the light of the other and can such interpretation enrich our understanding of the translated texts’ functioning in the target culture? Looking for answers to these questions, I focus on the blend of the poetic and playwrighting temperaments that characterise Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s translations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.

9

“By Looking Liking”: Baz Luhrmann’S William Shakespeare’S Romeo+Juliet

75%

Cinpoeş N.

Messages, Sages and Ages

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2016

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vol. 3

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issue 1

7-16

EN

Twenty years since its release onto the big screen, Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet continues to attract viewers, divide critics and remain unchallenged, in a league of its own, when it comes to film adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays. This article begins with taking stock of reception directions which still dispute the field of film adaptation. Cued by Worthen’s “Performance Paradigm”, my argument positions Luhrmann’s film (his second at the time and the one to propel the Australian director into Hollywood fame) firmly in the cinematic and sees the film narrative not as opposed to the textual and/or spoken one, but as a complex citational practice developed at the level of oral, visual and written discourse.

10

Mission (im)possible? Cross-gendered Shakespeare on Czech stages after 1989

75%

Mišterová I.

Theatralia: Revue současného myšlení o divadelní kultuře (Theatralia: The revue of contemporary thought on theatre culture)

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2021

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vol. 24

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issue Special_Issue

171-185

EN

This essay examines the theatrical practice of cross-gender casting with a focus on three selected productions of Romeo and Juliet staged by the Petr Bezruč Theatre in Ostrava (2011, director Anna Petrželková), the NaHraně Theatre in Prague (2012, director Jan Frič), and the Činoherní Studio Ústí nad Labem (2012, director Filip Nuckolls).

11

Verona dei viaggiatori polacchi (XVII–XIX secolo)

63%

Wrześniak M.

Italica Wratislaviensia

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2021

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issue 12.1

141-159

EN

The study presents the first analysis of the descriptions of Verona and the works of art collected in the city in the accounts of Polish travellers from the 17 th to 19 th centuries. As the researched source material shows, initially Poles visited the city only while passing through, on their way to Venice, stopping for a moment to see the only object “worth seeing”: the 1 st -century Roman amphitheatre located in the city centre. At that time, the descriptions of the city are laconic, as Verona was considered “secondary” in Italy. Only in the era of the "Grand Tour", and especially in the second half of the 18 th century, did Polish travellers intentionally visit Verona. They employed an experienced tour guide from the Bevilacqua family (recommended to their countrymen by Ignacy Potocki). They used specialised literature (Torello Saraina’s "Dell’origine et ampiezza della città di Verona", Verona 1586; Scipione Maffei’s "Verona illustrata e Museum veronense hoc est antiquarum inscriptionum atque anaglyphorum collectio", Verona 1749; and Giovanni Battista Da Persico’s "Descrizione di Verona e della sua provincia", Verona 1820), the purchase of which became one of the goals of a visit to Verona. In the 18 th century, the sightseeing route (reconstructed based on the accounts of Katarzyna Plater) included ancient architecture (Roman amphitheatre; Borsari Gate; Vitruvius Arch; Gavi Arch), museum collections (ancient art by Scipione Maffei; collections of paintings and sculptures of the Bevilacqua family; and Francesco Calzolar’s "Theatrum naturae", where the most admired objects were fossils from Monte Bolca), the modern architecture of Michele Sanmicheli (Palio Gate and Cappella Pellegrini), and Venetian paintings (Tintoretto and Veronese). Only in the 19 th century did the church of San Zeno appear among Verona’s must-see sites, described in detail as an excellent and rare example of Romanesque architecture; the house and tomb of Juliet was also included, though its state of preservation was completely inadequate to the image of Shakespeare’s drama and it tended to disappoint travellers.

IT

Il saggio presenta la prima analisi delle descrizioni di Verona e delle opere d’arte raccolte in città nei racconti dei viaggiatori polacchi del XVII–XIX secolo. Come risulta dalle ricerche effettuate, inizialmente i polacchi visitano la città solo di passaggio, sulla strada per Venezia, fermandosi qui per un momento per vedere l’unico oggetto “degno di essere visto”: l’anfiteatro romano del I secolo situato nel centro della città. A quel tempo le descrizioni della città erano laconiche, in quanto era considerata “secondaria” in Italia. Solo all’epoca del "Grand Tour", e soprattutto nella seconda metà del Settecento, i viaggiatori polacchi si dirigono intenzionalmente a Verona. Usano un cicerone consigliato da Ignacy Potocki. Utilizzano letteratura specializzata (Torello Saraina, "Dell’origine et ampiezza della città di Verona", Verona 1586, Scipione Maffei, "Verona illustrata e Museum veronense hoc est antiquarum inscriptionum atque anaglyphorum collectio", Verona 1749 e Giovanni Battista Da Persico, "Descrizione di Verona e della sua provincia", Verona 1820), il cui acquisto diventa uno degli obiettivi di una visita a Verona. Nel XVIII secolo, il percorso turistico (ricostruito sulla base del racconto di Katarzyna Platerowa "de domo" Sosnowska) comprendeva opere antiche (anfiteatro romano, Porta Borsari, Arco di Vitruvio, Arco Gavi), collezioni museali: arte antica di Scipione Maffei, collezione di dipinti e sculture della famiglia Bevilacqua e il "Theatrum naturae" di Francesco Calzolari, dove i più ammirati erano i fossili del Monte Bolca, e l’architettura moderna di Michele Sanmicheli (Porta Palio, cappella Pellegrini) e la pittura veneziana (Tintoretto, Veronese). Solo nell’Ottocento, tra i "must see" veronesi apparve la chiesa di San Zeno, descritta nei minimi dettagli come un eccellente e raro esempio di architettura romanica, e la casa e tomba di Giulietta, il cui stato di conservazione, del tutto inadeguato all’immagine del dramma di Shakespeare, delude i viaggiatori.

12

Not Minding the Gap: Intercultural Shakespeare in Britain

51%

Panjwani V.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance

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2017

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vol. 15

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issue 30

43-57

EN

The article takes issue with the perceived space/gap between the multiple identities of mixed-heritage groups, as most of these people often pick and choose elements from all of their identities and amalgamate them into a cross-cultural whole. In recent years, such mixed-heritage groups in the U.K. have increasingly found cultural expression in Shakespeare. Focusing specifically on a number of recent Shakespearean productions, by what I term Brasian (my preferred term for British-Asians as it suggests a more fused identity) theatre companies, the article demonstrates how these productions employ hybrid aesthetic styles, stories, and theatre forms to present a layered Braisian identity. It argues that these productions not only provide a nuanced understanding of the intercultural map of Britain but are also a rich breeding ground for innovative Shakespeare productions in the U.K.

Refine search results

Reinscribing Sexuality: Manga Versions of Romeo and Juliet

The Shakesepare Brand in Contemporary “Fair Verona”

Metanarratives and Storytelling in Contemporary Mainstream Popular Music: Romeo and Juliet in the Making of the Star Persona

Emerging postdramatic aesthetics and Shakespeare in Hungarian theatre

From Romero to Romeo-Shakespeare’s Star-Crossed Lovers Meeting Zombedy in Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies

A tragedy tailored to the spirit of the times – Romeo and Juliet as interpreted by Franco Zeffirelli and Baz Luhrmann

Method-ising Cognitive Truth: The Paradigm of Subtext in Baz Luhrmann’s Silver-Screen Vision of Romeo and Juliet’s Wedding

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz as Translator of Shakespeare

“By Looking Liking”: Baz Luhrmann’S William Shakespeare’S Romeo+Juliet

Mission (im)possible? Cross-gendered Shakespeare on Czech stages after 1989

Verona dei viaggiatori polacchi (XVII–XIX secolo)

Not Minding the Gap: Intercultural Shakespeare in Britain