Edward Bond's Lear, Arnold Wesker's the Merchant And
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Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of English Language and Literature English Language and Literature RE-WRITING SHAKESPEARE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: EDWARD BOND’S LEAR, ARNOLD WESKER’S THE MERCHANT AND HOWARD BARKER’S GERTRUDE-THE CRY IN SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT Özlem ÖZMEN Ph.D. Dissertation Ankara, 2018 RE-WRITING SHAKESPEARE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: EDWARD BOND’S LEAR, ARNOLD WESKER’S THE MERCHANT AND HOWARD BARKER’S GERTRUDE-THE CRY IN SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT Özlem ÖZMEN Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of English Language and Literature English Language and Literature Ph.D. Dissertation Ankara, 2018 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I express my gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Hande Seber for her heartfelt encouragement throughout my study. It would be very difficult to be motivated without her constructive feedback and scholarly advice. I am also grateful to my thesis committee members for providing feedback to my work each semester. I owe a special gratitude to Prof. Dr. A. Deniz Bozer who has provided invaluable guidance throughout my study. I especially thank the late Assoc. Prof. Dr. Laurence Raw for his inspiring comments and contribution to my work. I also present my thanks to the members of the viva committee, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sıla Şenlen Güvenç, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şebnem Kaya and Assist. Prof. Dr. Sinan Akıllı, for their inspiring questions and motivation. I am especially indebted to Prof. Dr. Burçin Erol, the Head of the English Language and Literature Department at Hacettepe University, for her continuous encouragement since my undergraduate years. She has truly been a role model for me with her discipline and character. I would also like to thank all my professors in this department for their contribution to my knowledge in different subject areas. I am also grateful to Dr. Bridget Escolme from the Department of Drama at Queen Mary University of London for welcoming me into their department to carry out my doctoral research between 2015-2016. I must acknowledge the time I spent at QMUL as the most prolific phase of my Ph.D. Furthermore, I owe a special thanks to Dr. Stephen Purcell from the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Warwick University for sparing his time to discuss my work. I appreciate The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK)’s financial support with the 2211-A and 2214-A scholarships they granted to me. I could go and study in the UK for some time thanks to TÜBİTAK’s financial support. I owe a debt to my colleagues and my friends who have stood by me. I am thankful to my dear roommate Cemre Mimoza Bartu not only for her endless encouragement but vi also for the most entertaining time we spent in our department. I present my sincere gratitude to Kübra Vural Özbey for her support and motivation. I also thank Emine Akkülah Doğan for sharing my excitement and enthusiasm with her MA thesis. I would also like to thank Assist. Prof. Dr. Hakan Yılmaz, Assist. Prof. Dr. Gülşah Göçmen, Assist. Prof. Dr. Ömer Kemal Gültekin, Assist. Prof. Dr. Merve Sarıkaya Şen, Assist. Prof. Dr. Pınar Taşdelen, Assist. Prof. Dr. İmren Yelmiş, Emrah Atasoy, Zümre Gizem Yılmaz, Kerim Can Yazgünoğlu, Ulaş Özgün and Seçil Erkoç for their support. I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents, İsmail Özmen and Fazilet Özmen for all that they have done for me. Their continuous belief, support and patience have truly provided the best source of motivation. I am especially thankful to dearest Fırat Akdoğan for offering professional advice and emotional support generously with his patience for the last five years. Final thanks goes to my dearest cat Zuzu who has been the source of love and compassion in my life, and also to my “little girl” Şirin, who departed us during my Ph.D. journey, for all the love she gave us. vii ABSTRACT ÖZMEN, Özlem. “Re-writing Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century: Edward Bond’s Lear, Arnold Wesker’s The Merchant and Howard Barker’s Gertrude-The Cry in Socio- Historical Context.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Ankara, 2018. This study examines re-writings of Shakespeare in British drama, Edward Bond’s Lear (1971), Arnold Wesker’s The Merchant (1976) and Howard Barker’s Gertrude-The Cry (2002) in relation to the socio-political, historical and cultural backgrounds of the periods in which they were generated. These works are considered both as commentary to the events of their historical background, and as plays that question Shakespeare’s literary and cultural status. Thus, it is asserted that re-writing has a significant function in terms of creating alternative ideas to the ways in which critical issues are discussed in the canonical texts and their political and ideological foundations. In the Introduction, re-writing’s association with adaptation theory and intertextuality as a postmodern practice is considered. Additionally, the development of Shakespearean re-writing, its reception, and its functions are discussed. Within the scope of these ideas, it is concluded that Shakespeare’s works are questioned, and their ideological aspects are criticised through reworkings. In the first chapter, Edward Bond’s Lear is examined as a Marxist-Socialist appropriation written against Shakespeare’s uncritical attitude to issues like class inequality and violence in King Lear (1606). Considering the problems of the 1970s’ Britain such as unequal class structure, student and worker’s riots, inefficiency of leftist politicians, violence triggered by Stalinism and the Vietnam War, it is discussed that Bond’s appropriation is not only a Shakespeare re-writing but also a play that sheds light on the concerns of its period. In the second chapter, Arnold Wesker’s The Merchant is analysed in terms of identity politics as the play criticises Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (1605) for its antisemitic discourse. Accordingly, Wesker’s re-writing, as a play produced in the post-Holocaust context, is correlated with some events in its historical background such as Arab-Israeli conflict, Six Day War and Yom Kippur War. In the third chapter, Howard Barker’s Gertrude-The Cry is discussed as a response to the representation of the woman figure in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600) in terms of sexual and gender politics. Considering the issues of the play such as individual will and sexual freedom in relation to the regulations of New Labour as the viii ruling party in Britain in the 2000s, Barker’s work is also analysed as a criticism of its historical context. In the Conclusion, it is revealed that re-writings of Shakespeare in British Drama reflect theoretical, cultural, socio-political and ideological aspects of the periods in which they are created, and they also adopt a critical attitude to Shakespeare’s works. In the light of the plays examined thematically and technically in this study, it is discussed that, Shakespeare’s works evolve in a way that reflects the significant events and concerns of subsequent ages. Keywords Shakespeare, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Edward Bond, Arnold Wesker, Howard Barker, Lear, The Merchant, Gertrude-The Cry, re-writing, adaptation ix ÖZET ÖZMEN, Özlem. “Yirminci Yüzyılda Shakespeare’in Sosyal ve Tarihî Bağlamda Yeniden Yazımları: Edward Bond’un Lear’ı, Arnold Wesker’ın The Merchant’ı ve Howard Barker’ın Gertrude-The Cry’ı.” Doktora Tezi, Ankara, 2018. Bu çalışma, Shakespeare’in eserlerinin İngiliz tiyatrosunda yeniden yazım örneklerinden olan Edward Bond’un Lear (1971), Arnold Wesker’ın The Merchant (1976) ve Howard Barker’ın Gertrude-The Cry (2002) adlı eserlerini yazıldıkları dönemin sosyo-politik, tarihî ve kültürel art alanına ilişkin olarak incelemektedir. Bu oyunlar hem dönemlerinde yaşanan olaylara birer yorum niteliğinde değerlendirilmektedir, hem de Shakespeare’in edebiyat dünyasındaki konumunu sorgulamak üzere yazılmış eserler olarak ele alınmaktadır. Böylelikle, edebiyatta yeniden yazımın önemli kaynak eserlerde ele alınan konuların işleniş biçimine, politik ve ideolojik altyapılarına karşı alternatif fikirler üretmek bakımından önemli bir işlevi olduğu savunulmaktadır. Giriş kısmında yeniden yazımın adaptasyon kuramı ve postmodern metinlerarasılık ile ilişkisi üzerinde durulmaktadır. Ardından, Shakespeare’in eserlerinin uyarlamalarının edebî tarihteki gelişimi, nasıl karşılandığı ve ne gibi işlevleri olduğu tartışılmaktadır. Bunun sonucunda da yeniden yazımlar yoluyla Shakespeare’in eserlerinin sorgulandığı ve ideolojik yanlarının eleştirildiği gibi çıkarımlar belirtilmektedir. Tezin birinci bölümünde Edward Bond’un Lear adlı oyunu, Kral Lear (1606) eserindeki sınıf eşitsizliği ve şiddet gibi konulara, aynı zamanda da Shakespeare’in bunlara kayıtsız tutumuna karşı Marksist sosyalist bakış açısıyla yazılmış bir yeniden yazım olarak incelenmektedir. 1970’ler İngiltere’sinde yaşanan sorunlar arasındaki sınıf eşitsizliği, öğrenci ve işçi grevleri, sol görüşlü liderlerin etkisizliği, Stalinizm ve Vietnam Savaşı ile artan şiddet göz önüne alınarak, Bond’un oyununun yalnızca bir Shakespeare uyarlaması değil aynı zamanda döneminin olaylarına ışık tutan bir eser olduğu tartışılmaktadır. İkinci bölümde, Arnold Wesker’ın The Merchant adlı eseri, Shakespeare’in Venedik Taciri (1605) adlı oyununu içerdiği Yahudi aleyhtarı söylem bakımından eleştirdiğinden kimlik politikaları kapsamında incelenmektedir. Nazi soykırımı sonrası dönemde üretilmiş bir eser olan Wesker’ın yeniden yazımı, yazıldığı dönemde yaşanan Arap-İsrail çatışması, Altı Gün Savaşı ve Yom Kippur Savaşı gibi olaylarla ilişkilendirilmektedir.