Search results

1

A Crack in the Shell: Reading a Few Lines from King Lear

100%

Sławek T.

Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies

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2016

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issue 25/3

11-36

XX

The article takes up the theme of Agamben’s violence without a form of justice and reads Shakespeare’s tragedy as spanned between Cordelia’s “nothing” at the start of the play and Lear’s “never” at its end. It also approaches a question of the relationship between, in Rousseau’s word, “l’homme naturel” and “citoyen.” Lear’s push towards a position of being “unaccommodated” suggests a move away from the organization of life previously holding its rule over men towards a marginal, peripheral zone with uncertain rules where man has to risk his own decisions rather than merely follow the custom.

2

The Gospel of Divine Mercy in King Lear

88%

Grzegorzewska M.

Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture

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2021

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issue 11

321-333

EN

The paper discusses Shakespeare’s preoccupation with the Christian notions of divine love, forgiveness and justice in The Tragedy of King Lear. In my reading I employ Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenological reflection on the givenness of love and Hans-Urs von Balthasar’s theology of Paschal mystery. I take issue with the Marxist and existentialist interpretations of Shakespeare’s tragedy which prevailed in the second half of the $20^{th}$ century. My aim is not a simple recuperation of the “redemptionism” of the play, but an in-depth consideration of Christian allusions in the play which may tie love and forgiveness to justice and throw light on the ending of King Lear.

3

Dehierarchizing Space: Performer-Audience Collaborations in Two Portuguese Performances of Shakespeare

88%

Rayner F.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance

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2017

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vol. 15

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issue 30

27-41

EN

This article addresses the key role of performance space in mediating between cultural locations. It discusses two Portuguese performances of Shakespeare where audiences were invited to become part of the performance and the ways in which this dehierarchization of the performance space framed a cross-cultural encounter between a globalized text and a localized performance context. In Teatro Oficina’s 2012 King Lear, both audience and performers sat around a large table in a production which reflected upon questions of individual and collective responsibility in Shakespearean tragedy and in the wider political sphere. In the middle of this performance space hung a large cube onto which the translated text was projected, setting up a spatial tension between text and performance that also foregrounded the translocation of the Shakespearean text to a Portuguese performance context. In Tiago Rodrigues’ 2013 By Heart, ten members of the audience were invited onstage to learn Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30 “by heart and not by brain.”1 In doing so, Rodrigues emphasized the cultural embeddedness of Shakespearean texts in a wider European cultural context and operated a subtle shift from texts to performance as a privileged repository for the cultural memory of Shakespeare. The article explores how these spatial shifts signaled the possibility of enabling cross-cultural identifications with Shakespeare through performance.

4

The Medievalism of Emotions in King Lear

88%

Czarnowus A.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance

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2021

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vol. 23

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issue 38

181-196

PL

King Lear unaocznia dwie kultury uczuć, kulturę średniowieczną i renesansową. Jest to widoczne przy prezentacji zagadnienia, jak uczucia mają być wyrażane, gdyż w średniowieczu trzeba je było głośno wyrażać, ale w świecie przedstawionym w sztuce jest to trudne do zrobienia. Elementem wspólnym dla starożytności, średniowiecza i renesansu była teoria humoralna. Shakespeare omawia, jak renesans przepracowuje mediewalistyczne pojęcia honoru, złości, wstydu, dumy, a także w jaki sposób podchodzi do tematu uczuć jako czegoś mającego miejsce w ciele. Artykuł analizuje mediewalizm w uczuciach oraz przedstawia renesansową zmianę, która dotyczyła emocji średniowiecznych.

EN

King Lear exemplifies two cultures of feeling, the medieval and the early modern one. Even though the humoral theory lay at the heart of the medieval and the early modern understanding of emotions, there was a sudden change in the understanding of specific medieval emotions in Renaissance England, such as honour as an emotional disposition. Emotional expression also changed, since the late Middle Ages favoured vehement emotional expression, while in early modern England curtailment of any affective responses was advocated. Early modern England cut itself off from its medieval past in this manner and saw itself as “civilized” due to this restraint. Also some medieval courtly rituals were rejected. Expression of anger was no longer seen as natural and socially necessary. Shame started to be perceived as a private emotion and was not related to public shaming. The meaning of pride was discussed and love was separated from the medieval concept of charity. In contrast, in King Lear the question of embodiment of emotions is seen from a perspective similar to the medieval one. The article analyzes medievalism in terms of affections and studies the shift from the medieval ideas about them to the early modern ones.

5

“Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown”: William Shakespeare and the Language of Disguise

88%

Dale J.

Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies

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2016

|

issue 25/3

81-95

EN

William Shakespeare’s use of theatrical disguise can be assessed through the discourses his disguised characters employ, having signiﬁcant ramiﬁcations at a socio-political, linguistic and metatheatrical level. In illustrating this view, I will explore the role(s) of Edgar in King Lear, drawing on the views of Stephen Greenblatt, Mikhail Bahktin and Ludwig Wittgenstein. I will then examine my conclusions and align them to Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale and Feste in Twelfth Night, while determining whether any recurring socio-political, linguistic and metatheatrical patterns emerge. Finally, I will determine whether it is possible to formulate a strategy of a language of disguise as Shakespeare saw it.

6

Time and Age as Protagonists in Sophocles’ Oedipus Coloneus

75%

Schade G.

Symbolae Philologorum Posnaniensium Graecae et Latinae

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2014

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vol. 24

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issue 2

5-14

PL

Sophocles’ second Oedipus-play clearly relates to the first; it holds, however, a particular place in literary history, for it was the last play to be included into the canon of classical Attic tragedy. Moreover, the play shows another peculiarity: though the idea that death can be preferable to life is familiar to all Sophoclean protagonists, Oedipus was the only one allowed to get old, a process depicted quite realistically by old Sophocles. Oedipus’ self-explanation, however, that he suffered himself more than he really acted, resembles much a Catch-22 situation: if that were the case in those days, as Oedipus says that it was, he then was crazy and didn’t have to do what he did; but if he didn’t want to do what he did then, he was sane and had to do it, because the gods wanted him to do it. The proposed new reading of the play shows how time and age work on Oedipus’ frame of mind: a desire for whitewashing is acted out in a blame-game, awareness of what is to come is coupled with rather a hesitant manner as though he is slightly unsure of himself (what he is not), and eventually, being out of touch with time and fearing to be left alone make Oedipus curse, for he had been treated unjustly: Oedipus comes close to Shakespeare’s King Lear, though he does not go mad, he only becomes bad and dangerous to know.

7

East Meets West: Identity and Intercultural Discourse in Chinese huaju Shakespeares

75%

Tang R.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance

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2019

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vol. 20

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issue 35

61-81

EN

This article examines two huaju performances of Shakespeare-The Tragedy of Coriolanus (2007) and King Lear (2006), which are good examples of cultural exchanges between East and West, integrating Shakespeare into contemporary Chinese culture and politics. The two works provide distinctive approaches to the issues of identity in intercultural discourse. At the core of both productions lies the fundamental question: “Who am I?” At stake are the artists’ personal and cultural identities as processes of globalisation intensify. These performances not only exemplify the intercultural productivity of Shakespearean texts, but more critically, illustrate how Shakespeare and intercultural discourses are internalized and reconfigured by the nation and culture that consume and re-produce them. Chinese adaptations of Coriolanus and King Lear demonstrate how (intercultural) identity is constructed through the subjectivity and iconicity of Shakespeare’s characters and the performativity of Shakespeare’s texts.

8

„Nejstarší nejvíc nes’”: stáří Shakespearova krále Leara v českých obrozeneckých překladech

75%

Krajník F.

Slavica Wratislaviensia

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2016

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vol. 163

449-462

EN

A number of critics have noted the importance of the motif of old age in Shakespeare’s King Lear, chiefly the old age of the play’s eponymous character. Indeed, the King’s age serves in the play as a powerful dramaturgical device, a kind of prism through which the audience sees not just Lear’s character, but also other characters’ deeds and most of the play’s action. When watching the play, the audience is constantly reminded of Lear’s age, both directly, through Lear’s or other characters’ speeches, and indirectly, through a number of physical details. It could be said that the King’s age is employed at all possible levels of the drama, becoming the main impulse for the development of the plot. King Lear is one of the first plays by Shakespeare to be translated into Czech, and various dramatists attempted to localise it for Czech audiences. The present paper examines three early translations of King Lear into Czech: by Prokop Šedivý (1792), Josef Kajetán Tyl (1835), and Ladislav Čelakovský (1856). While the last mentioned version is the first “true” translation of the play into Czech, using Shakespeare’s unabridged English original as the source text, the two earlier translations are rather loose adaptations, almost certainly based on various German stage versions, altering significant portions of the story and cutting entire scenes and speeches (or even characters). Surprisingly, even the earliest Czech translators seem to have been aware of the dramaturgical importance of the dominant motif in the original play and, in spite of the (sometimes) drastic alterations, tried to preserve it in their versions as much as possible. Nevertheless, in various passages from the Czech versions, we may observe that even with this knowledge, the translators at times struggled with a number of nuances in the original, not always being able to preserve the complexity of a character or dramatic situation. This was only achieved by Ladislav Čelakovský, whose mid-19th century text was the first to represent Shakespeare’s King Lear, both in terms of form and, of course, in terms of the motifs of the original.

PL

Wielu badaczy zwróciło uwagę na znaczenie motywu starości w Królu Learze Szekspira, zwłaszcza na starość tytułowego protagonisty dramatu. Królewska starość służy w istocie jako mocny środek dramaturgiczny owego utworu, w pewnym sensie jest to pryzmat, przez który widzowie spoglądają nie tylko na samego Leara, ale także na czyny pozostałych postaci i akcję sztuki w ogóle. Podczas przedstawienia uwagę widzów nieustannie przyciąga wiek Leara, bądź bezpośrednio, a więc w samych wypowiedziach Leara lub innych postaci, bądź za pomocą szeregu detali fizycznych. Można stwierdzić, że wiek króla pojawia się we wszystkich warstwach dramatu i staje się głównym impulsem rozwoju akcji. Król Lear jest jednym z pierwszych dramatów Szekspira, które zostały przełożone na język czeski, a w sumie istnieje około piętnastu czeskich przekładów tego tekstu. Niniejszy esej bada trzy wczesne przekłady wersję Prokopa Šedivego (1792), Josefa Kajetána Tyla (1835) i Ladislava Čelakovskiego (1856). Podczas gdy ostatni wymieniony tekst jest pierwszym „prawdziwym” przekładem Króla Leara na czeski, wychodzącym z nieskróconego angielskiego oryginału jako wzorca, pozostałe dwa przekłady są raczej wolniejszymi adaptacjami, prawie na pewno opartymi na różnych niemieckich adaptacjach pierwotnej sztuki, w których zmienione są znaczące elementy historii, a czasem całe dialogi i sceny (a nawet postaci). Jednak nawet pierwsi czescy tłumacze mimo wszystko świadomi byli dramaturgicznego znaczenia dominującego motywu starości w pierwotnym tekście i nawet w pewnych drastycznych skrótach tekstu starali się go w jak największym stopniu zachować. Z konfrontacji różnych fragmentów badanych wersji czeskich wypływa, że i w tym wypadku tłumacze często walczyli z różnymi niuansami oryginału i nie zawsze potrafili zachować daną postać czy sytuację w całej jej rozpiętości. Osiągnął to dopiero Ladislav Čelakovski. Jego przekład zpołowy XIX wieku był pierwszym, w którym udało się w pełni wyrazić tekst Szekspirowskiego Króla Leara od strony formalnej, oraz zachować sens poszczególnych motywów oryginału.

9

Scenographer Antonín Heythum and his work in the US : the case of King Lear

75%

Koubská V.

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

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2018

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vol. 21

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issue 2

38-63

EN

The article focuses on the stage designs of Antonín Heythum. Heythum's work during the interwar period is relatively well known and has been (somewhat incorrectly) aligned with Constructivist scenography. There are a number of materials for his designs for the Liberated Theatre (Osvobozené divadlo) (e.g. Circus Dandin, Když ženy něco slaví [When Women Celebrate]) and other Czech theatres (Olomouc, Ostrava, and others). We, however, have only scarce information about his work in the US, where he lived after 1939. The article discusses Heythum's war and post-war life and work paying special attention to the production of King Lear, an extraordinary stage experiment directed by Erwin Piscator in New York. The article also examines Heythum's pedagogical activities in the United States.

10

Decentering the Bard: The Localization of "King Lear" in Egyptian TV Drama "Dahsha"

75%

Selim Y. F.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance

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2018

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vol. 18

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issue 33

145-160

EN

Dahsha [Bewilderment] is an Egyptian TV series written by scriptwriter Abdelrahim Kamal and adapted from Shakespeare’s King Lear. The TV drama locates Al Basel Hamad Al Basha, Lear’s counterpart, in Upper Egypt and follows a localized version of the king’s tragedy starting from the division of his lands between his two wicked daughters and the disinheritance of his sincere daughter till his downfall. This study examines the relationship between Dahsha and King Lear and investigates the position of the Bard when contextualized in other cultures, revisited in other locales, and retold in other languages. It raises many questions about Shakespeare’s proximity to the transcultural/transnational adaptations of his plays. Does Shakespeare’s discourse limit the interpretation of the adapted works or does it promote intercultural conversations between the varying worldviews? Where is the Bard positioned when contextualized in other cultures, revisited in other locales, and retold in other languages? Does he stand in the center or at the margin? The study attempts to answer these questions and to read the Egyptian localization of King Lear as an independent work that transposes Shakespeare from a central dominant element into a periphery that remains visible in the background of the Upper Egyptian drama.

11

Restored and de-restored: killing off Garrick in John Philip Kemble's King Lear

63%

Krajník F.

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 1

92-100

EN

Nahum Tate's Restoration version of King Lear (1680 or 1681) managed to replace Shakespeare's original on English stages for more than a century and a half. While the efforts of David Garrick and George Colman to reinstate Shakespeare's plot and language in English theatres in the latter half of the eighteenth century have been acknowledged, little has been said in this respect about the late eighteenth-century actor and theatre manager John Philip Kemble and his version of the play that premiered in 1792. The present article will try to propose the possible motivation of Kemble's step to discard Garrick's popular alteration and will also argue that the decision to erase Garrick's restorations and recur essentially to Tate's outmoded version of the play at the end of the eighteenth century was probably one of the factors that helped to restore Shakespeare's original in English theatres when King Lear was revived in the 1820s after a decade-long hiatus.

12

From Euphemisms to Vulgarisms: Translating King Lear’s Misogynistic Monologue (Act IV, Scene 6) into Polish

63%

Cebrat G. A.

Półrocznik Językoznawczy Tertium

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2020

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vol. 5

|

issue 1

77-96

PL

Artykuł jest próbą analizy technik i metod zastosowanych przez tłumaczy w trakcie przekładu wyrazów i wyrażeń obscenicznych występujących w tragedii Williama Shakespeare’a Król Lear na język polski. Analiza skupia się na tłumaczeniach monologu szalonego króla (Akt IV, scena 6, wersy 107-132), który jawi się jako mizoginistyczny atak na kobiety, seksualność, oraz cudzołóstwo. Materiał tekstowy stanowi 15 przekładów sztuki, począwszy od najstarszego tłumaczenia, dokonanego przez Ignacego Hołowińskiego i opublikowanego w 1841 roku, a skończywszy na wersji Jerzego S. Sity z roku 2001. Artykuł analizuje wybrane zdania i jednostki leksykalne, pochodzące z siedmiu fragmentów monologu, pod kątem technik i strategii tłumaczeniowych zastosowanych przez poszczególnych tłumaczy przy przekładaniu pojęć uważanych za nieprzyzwoite, a dotyczących kobiecego ciała, seksu, rozpusty, cudzołóstwa, itp. Przeprowadzona analiza wykazuje ewolucję sposobów przekładu, związanych z epoką w której polski tekst powstał i jej uwarunkowaniami kulturowo-społecznymi, a także z rozwojem badań nad twórczością i językiem Shakespeare’a, i pozwala śledzić zmiany, począwszy od eufemistycznego stylu tłumaczeń powstałych w XIX. wieku, poprzez filologiczne tłumaczenia Tarnawskiego i Chwalewika, a skończywszy na współczesnych, miejscami ‘niecenzuralnych,’ tekstach Słomczyńskigo, Barańczaka, a zwłaszcza Sity, który nie zawahał się użyć wulgaryzmów.

EN

The paper investigates the issue how Polish translators of William Shakespeare’s King Lear dealt with rendering Lear’s monologue (Act IV, Scene 6, ll. 107-132), being a misogynistic tirade of the mad king against adultery, sexuality, and women in general. The play was translated into Polish at least fifteen times in the 19th and 20th centuries, beginning with the oldest published rendition by Ignacy Hołowiński (1841) and concluding with the most recent one by Jerzy S. Sito (2001). The paper analyses seven selected fragments taking into consideration lexical and stylistic choices made by the translators of the monologue in order to show how changing attitudes to sexual taboo and Shakespearean obscenities affected the translations in question. The analysis reveals the evolution of translators’ attitudes to those issues (also affected by contemporary Shakespearean research): from euphemistic treatment of the topic in the 19th century, through philological translations of Tarnawski and Chwalewik, to unrestricted modern renditions of Słomczyński and Barańczak, and the extreme case of straightforward obscene translation of Jerzy S. Sito

13

Noh Creation of Shakespeare

63%

Munakata K.

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance

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2016

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vol. 14

|

issue 29

87-106

EN

This article contains select comments and reviews on Noh Hamlet and Noh Othello in English and Noh King Lear in Japanese. The scripts from these performances were arranged based on Shakespeare’s originals and directed on stage and performed in English by Kuniyoshi Munakata from the early 1980s until 2014. Also, the whole text of Munakata’s Noh Macbeth in English (Munakata himself acted as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in one play) is for the first time publicized. The writers of the comments and reviews include notable people such as John Fraser, Michael Barrett, Upton Murakami, Donald Richie, Rick Ansorg, James David Audlin, Jesper Keller, Jean-Claude Saint-Marc, Jean-Claude Baumier, Judy Kendall, Allan Owen, Yoshio ARAI, Yasumasa OKAMOTO, Tatsuhiko TAIRA, Hikaru ENDO, Kazumi YAMAGATA, Hanako ENDO, Yoshiko KAWACHI, Mari Boyd, and Daniel Gallimore.

14

Dve herecké podoby prvého slovenského Kráľa Leara

63%

Mišovic K.

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

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2023

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vol. 26

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issue 2

137-156

EN

With the beginning of the Normalisation period, the drama ensemble of the Slovak National Theatre lost its position as one of the most progressive Slovak theatres. From the group of in-house directors, only Pavol Haspra (1929–2004) was able to attract some attention. During this period, he began to choose titles seldomly performed in Slovakia. One of these was Shakespeare's King Lear (prem. 25. 10. 1975). The production was impressive mainly due to the acting, as the reviewers especially praised the double casting of the title role – Gustáv Valach (1921–2002) and Karol Machata (1928–2016). However, to this day, no study has been written that would evaluate their acting from the current perspective. This paper aims to present the significance of Haspra's production and to demonstrate the different conceptual and acting shapes of the first King Lear in the Slovak language.

Refine search results

A Crack in the Shell: Reading a Few Lines from King Lear

The Gospel of Divine Mercy in King Lear

Dehierarchizing Space: Performer-Audience Collaborations in Two Portuguese Performances of Shakespeare

The Medievalism of Emotions in King Lear

“Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown”: William Shakespeare and the Language of Disguise

Time and Age as Protagonists in Sophocles’ Oedipus Coloneus

East Meets West: Identity and Intercultural Discourse in Chinese huaju Shakespeares

„Nejstarší nejvíc nes’”: stáří Shakespearova krále Leara v českých obrozeneckých překladech

Scenographer Antonín Heythum and his work in the US : the case of King Lear

Decentering the Bard: The Localization of "King Lear" in Egyptian TV Drama "Dahsha"

Restored and de-restored: killing off Garrick in John Philip Kemble's King Lear

From Euphemisms to Vulgarisms: Translating King Lear’s Misogynistic Monologue (Act IV, Scene 6) into Polish

Noh Creation of Shakespeare

Dve herecké podoby prvého slovenského Kráľa Leara