Stage Appropriations of Shakespeare's Major Tragedies
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Stage Appropriations of Shakespeare’s Major Tragedies, 1979-2010 Hildeman Sjölin, Mette Published: 2017-02-24 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Sjölin, M. (2017). Stage Appropriations of Shakespeare’s Major Tragedies, 1979-2010 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private LUND UNIVERSITY study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? PO Box 117 Take down policy 221 00 Lund If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove +46 46-222 00 00 access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Stage Appropriations of Shakespeare’s Major Tragedies, 1979-2010 Mette Sjölin DOCTORAL DISSERTATION by due permission of the Faculty of Humanities, Lund University, Sweden To be defended at the Centre for Languages and Literature Saturday 25 March 2017, 10.15. Faculty examiner Professor Michael Dobson, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham Organization Document name LUND UNIVERSITY DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Centre for Languages and Literature Date of issue P.O. Box 201 2017-02-24 SE-221 00 Lund Sweden Author(s) Sponsoring organization Mette Sjölin Title and subtitle Stage Appropriations of Shakespeare’s Major Tragedies, 1979-2010 Abstract This dissertation examines appropriations of five of Shakespeare’s tragedies (King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet), written for the stage between 1979 and 2010 and set in Shakespeare’s playworlds. The aim of the study is to investigate how these appropriations are used as a strategy for discussing issues that are central both to Shakespeare’s plays and to the present gender-political climate, with particular focus on the depiction of women and familial relationships. Appropriations of Shakespeare’s major tragedies, especially feminist re-visions, from the decades around the turn of the millennium often treat Shakespeare’s tragedies as domestic drama, which brings out the gender- and family- related issues in them; and there is a parallel tendency in productions of Shakespeare’s tragedies from the same time period. Feminist re-visions sometimes draw on perceived inherent feminism in Shakespeare’s plays and sometimes challenge perceived patriarchal values reproduced in them; the same tension can be found in feminist criticism and performance of Shakespeare. I introduce the concept of ‘the appropriative impulse’, which I argue often stems from unanswered questions and unsatisfying solutions in Shakespeare’s plays. These are often connected to gender issues and resonate with appropriators owing to the connections to contemporary concerns. The appropriations in turn often introduce a new condition that could have an impact on spectators’/readers’ future perception of Shakespeare’s plays. The study is divided into seven chapters: five chapters on the five Shakespearean tragedies and their appropriations, preceded by a chapter putting Shakespeare appropriation into the context of the relation between Shakespeare and gender in today’s theatre and followed by a chapter on the strategies employed in feminist re-visions. Key words Appropriation in literature; Appropriation of Shakespeare; Shakespeare in performance; Feminist re-vision; Women in Literature; King Lear; Macbeth; Othello; Romeo and Juliet; Hamlet Classification system and/or index terms (if any) Supplementary bibliographical information Language English ISSN and key title ISBN Recipient’s notes Number of pages Price 409 Security classification I, the undersigned, being the copyright owner of the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation, hereby grant to all reference sources permission to publish and disseminate the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation. Signature Date ii Stage Appropriations of Shakespeare’s Major Tragedies, 1979-2010 Mette Sjölin Centre for Languages and Literature English Studies Lund University iii © Mette Sjölin Dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Lund University 2017 iv Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Shakespeare and Women 19 Women in Shakespeare: Shortage and Superabundance 20 Practical and Ideological Approaches 31 Trusting and Resisting Shakespeare 48 Chapter 2. King Lear and His Daughters’ Missing Mother: ‘Why did it happen?’ 57 ‘Why, this is not Lear’: King Lear as Appropriation and Source of Appropriations 58 ‘He always loved our sister most’: Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and Their Father 66 ‘I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth’: Lending a Voice to Silenced Women 78 ‘Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?’: Appropriating the Lear Family 85 ‘[W]e / Have no such daughter’: Cordelia, Cinderella and the Alleged Changeling 100 ‘For as I am a man, I think this lady / To be my child Cordelia’: Lear’s Children 106 Chapter 3. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s Missing Child: ‘What “really” happened?’ 123 ‘What’s done cannot be undone’: Re-Writing History in Macbeth and Its Appropriations 124 ‘How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me’: The Missing Child 134 ‘Look to the Lady’: Who is Lady Macbeth? 158 Chapter 4. Othello and Desdemona’s Lost Handkerchief: ‘Did it have to happen?’ 177 ‘When you shall these unlucky deeds relate’: Othello as an Appropriation 178 ‘Villainy, villainy, villainy’: Ideological Challenges and Opportunities in Othello 182 v ‘Or say they strike us’: Men, Women and Domestic Violence 204 ‘I took you for that cunning whore of Venice’: Reimagining Desdemona 214 ‘Sure there’s some wonder in this handkerchief’: Saving Desdemona 221 Chapter 5. Romeo and Juliet and the Possibility of Romantic Comedy: ‘What might have happened?’ 231 ‘From ancient grudge’: Romeo and Juliet’s Sources and Appropriations 232 ‘An if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy’: The Friar’s Plan 235 ‘Younger than she are happy mothers made’: Children and Adults 242 ‘For never was a story of more woe’: Romantic Love 250 ‘Henceforth I never will be Romeo’: Transforming Gender and Genre 259 Chapter 6. Hamlet and The Question: ‘Did it happen?’ 275 ‘This is I, Hamlet the Dane’: Hamlet’s Historical Sources and Their Appropriations 276 ‘What a piece of work is a man’: Hamlet’s Gender 279 ‘[Y]oung Hamlet’: Hamlet’s Age 286 ‘O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain’: Gertrude 291 ‘To be, or not to be’: The Question 303 ‘I do not know, my lord, what I should think’: Ophelia 310 Chapter 7. Feminist Re-Vision Strategies 335 Strategies for Putting Women Centre Stage 335 The Father as a Symbol of Patriarchy 341 The Shakespearean Tragic Family 344 Making Audiences Laugh or Cry 350 Pessimistic and Optimistic Feminism: Towards a Theory of Feminist Re-Vision 352 Conclusion 357 Appendix 1: Presentation of the appropriations (in alphabetical order) 365 Appendix 2: Categorisation of stage appropriations of Shakespearean tragedies 379 Appendix 3: Student response 381 Bibliography 391 vi Acknowledgements I owe many debts of gratitude in connection with the writing of this thesis. My main supervisor, Professor Emerita Marianne Thormählen, has guided me through the process with patience, generosity and tireless dedication. Her kind and encouraging way of giving feedback and her unerring eye for detail have always made me feel in safe hands, and I am convinced that this project would not have been possible without her. My thanks also go to my co-supervisor, Professor Christopher Innes of York University, Toronto, whose unrivalled knowledge of modern drama was an invaluable resource, and to Dr Bridget Escolme of Queen Mary University of London, whose thorough and insightful review of the thesis at my final seminar greatly improved the finished result. The members of the Higher Literary Seminar at the English unit of the Centre for Languages and Literature at Lund University have read a large number of drafts in varying states of roughness, and their feedback has contributed to everything from the delimitation of the topic to the phrasing of the footnotes. For this, I am indebted to the following people: Dr Birgitta Berglund, Dr Sara Håkansson, Dr Kiki Lindell, Dr Ellen Turner, Dr Annika Lindskog, Dr Eric Pudney, Charlotte Hansson Webb, Lisa-Marie Teubler, Professor Jane Mattisson Ekstam, Professor Cian Duffy, Associate Professor Alexander Bareis, Dr Cecilia Wadsö Lecaros, Dr Claes Lindskog, Dr Sanna Melin Schyllert, Lisa Hetherington and Katie Anderson Ahlstedt. I especially want to thank Kiki for much-appreciated mentoring over the years in the ins and outs of being a Shakespeare buff. I would also like to thank Professor Dylan Glynn for so enthusiastically encouraging me to pursue doctoral studies in the first place. Olof Sagers stipendiefond very generously enabled me to spend two months at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2014, as well as to attend the 2015 Cambridge Shakespeare Summer School and the 2016 World Shakespeare Congress and to spend shorter stints at the British Library, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library and Archive, the National Theatre Archive and the Victoria and Albert Theatre and Performance Archives. All this has provided me with extremely valuable input and given me new perspectives on my material. I would also like to thank the helpful and friendly staff at the archives. My heartfelt thanks are due to the staff of the Shakespeare Institute not only for the resources, reading advice and research environment that I was fortunate enough to partake of during my time as a vising scholar, but also for letting me take a module there as a master’s student in 2010, where Dr Robert Wilcher first introduced me to the play Lear’s Daughters, which became the starting-point for this thesis project.