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BEING A THING IMMORTAL: SHAKESPEARE, YOUNG ADULT CULTURE, AND THE MOTIFS OF THE UNDEAD by GAVIN HARPER A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2015 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Gavin Harper Title: Being a Thing Immortal: Shakespeare, Young Adult Culture, and the Motifs of the Undead This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of English by: Lisa Myobun Freinkel Chairperson Lara Bovilsky Core Member Sangita Gopal Core Member Kenneth Calhoon Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded December 2015 ii © 2015 Gavin Harper This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (United States) License. iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Gavin Harper Doctor of Philosophy Department of English December 2015 Title: Being a Thing Immortal: Shakespeare, Young Adult Culture, and the Motifs of the Undead In the early decades of the twenty-first century William Shakespeare’s works and figure began to arise in Young Adult adaptations and transnarratives focusing upon the undead. These works of werewolf, vampire, and zombie fiction represented Shakespeare as a creature of the undead or as a heroic savior. I argue that the figure of Shakespeare appears as an ambivalent symbol of corrupt authority or redeeming power within these YA undead adaptations because we are unable to reconcile Shakespeare’s centrality in literary studies with our twenty-first century social, political, and moral ideals such as multiculturalism, gender equality, and race relations. Essentially, these undead adaptations manifest the figure of Shakespeare as a crisis of our own faith in the “dead white European male” model of authority. Many of the works offer a rather dim view of the author and the cultural authority that he once represented. And the image these YA narratives conjure is often that of a zombie Shakespeare who is both immortal and rotting. Or alternatively, the absolute power of a vampire iv Shakespeare: cold, white, male, feeding upon the blood of the living. I argue that the YA protagonists must destroy the corrupt authority figures who hold power over them to create a “new world order” in these narratives, and Shakespeare’s position as “the author of authors” serves as the prime target. Alternatively, the contrasting narratives place Shakespeare in opposition to the undead hordes that are attacking humanity. In these novels and films, the figure of Shakespeare is an iteration of viable knowledge and authority solving not only his era’s problems, but those of our own, as well. I argue that these narratives seek to renew and add to Shakespeare’s authority through a metaphor of undead hybridity. By analyzing the werewolf or zombie-hunter in both film and literature, I demonstrate that many narratives utilize Shakespeare as a hybrid of both historical/literary authority and our own modern ideals. Rather than simply wolf or slayer, the Shakespeare of these narratives is both early modern authority and twenty-first century social/political hero. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Gavin Harper GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene, OR Brigham Young University, Provo, UT Weber State University, Ogden, UT DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, English, 2015, University of Oregon Master of Arts, English, 1998, Brigham Young University Bachelor of Arts, English, 1994, Weber State University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Structured Emphasis in Film Studies Shakespeare Studies Film Theory, Performance Theory PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Park University, Hill AFB, UT, 2006-2015 Full-Time Instructor, Adjunct Faculty Weber State University, Ogden, UT, 1998-2010 Adjunct Faculty GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Instructor of the Year, Park University, 2015 Stanley Maveety Fellowship Recipient, Renaissance Studies, University of Oregon, 2000-01 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my appreciation to Professor Freinkel for her help in preparing this manuscript. There are few people who have directed me on stage, in a graduate seminar, as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, and in writing a dissertation. Dr. Freinkel is unique on all accounts. In addition, I wish to thank Dr. Bovilsky for her much needed help in editing my prose. I also wish to thank Dr. Gopal for her direct help in addressing the film studies issues necessary to complete my work, as well as Dr. Calhoon for his questions regarding the undead. Finally, I also wish to thank the readers of this manuscript for their valuable input: Carol-Ann Fuller, the best colleague and academic editor that I could ever hope to find and Dr. Marci Carrasquillo for her friendship and direct input into my argumentative strategies. vii This work is for Michelle, Alex, and Chandler: the loving, supportive, and patient trio. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION: EARLY SHAKESPEAREAN ENCOUNTERS…….. 1 II. SHAKESPEARE AMONG THE UNDEAD: YOUNG ADULT CULTURE'S SHAKESPEAREAN RESURRECTION ......................... 8 Notes...................................................................................... 47 III. FEMINIST WEREWOLVES AND CULTURALLY ELITIST VAMPIRES: YOUNG ADULT REGENERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE AND THE UNDEAD……………………………………. 49 Notes....................................................................................... 83 IV. SHAKESPEARE'S UNDEAD FLESH: THE UNCANNY, ABJECTION, AND WOUND CULTURE IN YA ADAPTATIONS ....... 85 V. SHAKESPEAREAN IMMERSION: SHAKESPEARE'S PERSONA IN VIDEO GAMES, FANFICTION, AND YA DRAMA............................ 119 Notes....................................................................................... 156 REFERENCES CITED ....................................................................... 158 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: EARLY SHAKESPEAREAN ENCOUNTERS As a child, I rarely gave William Shakespeare even a casual thought. Most of the reading curriculum in my junior high English classes involved stories of the American Midwest, a Bildungsroman or two of early American lives, and the perils of entering puberty by way of Judy Blume’s books. If Shakespeare was part of even a single narrative I have no memory of his presence. I do remember the puzzling language of Romeo and Juliet in high school and the shocking discovery of Shakespeare’s dramatic works in my own college years. My first encounters with Shakespeare were with his original dramatic works, contained in books battered by many previous high school readers. The only intermediaries between Shakespeare and myself were the editor of the volume and my teachers and professors. However, as I look at the reading lists my own sons are bringing home in middle school and beyond, the pages of possible reading choices offer a staggering number of Shakespearean novels. My attention was sparked initially by how few of these novels have anything to do with Shakespeare’s dramatic works. Instead, the novels on a sixth- to-eighth grade reading list include tales of werewolves, vampires, and zombies. These same novels, surprisingly, regularly include Shakespeare as a character within the dramatis personae. Those reading lists offer a 1 myriad of tales: Lori Handeland’s Shakespeare Undead (2010) and its sequel, Zombie Island (2012); Stacey Jay’s Juliet Immortal (2011) and its sequel, Romeo Redeemed (2012); Conor McCreery’s graphic novel Kill Shakespeare (2010); Caroline B. Cooney’s Enter Three Witches (2007); Claudia Gabel’s Romeo & Juliet & Vampires (2010); and Lyssa Chiavari’s edited collection of supernatural Shakespeare short stories, Perchance to Dream: Classic Tales from the Bard's World in New Skins (2015). Such a curriculum offers a new perspective on Shakespeare. Collectively, the novels displayed an ambivalent portrayal of the Bard. Often, Shakespeare appeared as a vampire or zombie, his wounds agape, one arm stretched out before him, ready to tear the young protagonists limb from limb. In other works, Shakespeare appeared in contrast to the forces of evil, a hero who held the undead apocalypse at bay for a modern world. However, even in the novels in which Shakespeare appeared heroic, his authority demonstrated a corruption of authority. For example, in Handeland’s novel Shakespeare Undead, Shakespeare is a zombie-slayer, keeping the world safe from an imminent zombie apocalypse, but simultaneously, he is a vampire feeding upon multitudes of the living. One of the counterparts to Shakespeare in these novels would be Edward Cullen from the Twilight novels, a hero, for certain, but one struggling with the corruption of his undead flesh. I enter this dissertation through my sons’ exposure to Shakespearean novels and through my teaching of college-level students. 2 My sons arrived at a dark reading of Shakespeare before ever encountering a single original source of his writing. Similarly, my college students arrive at their first Shakespeare class with entirely different opinions and perspectives on the Shakespearean corpus because of the tangential nature of their initial encounters with him in young adult readings. I first became aware of the ways these novels and films were affecting young readers when I would sit down in the evenings to read bedtime stories with my two sons. The novels were initially