a transdisciplinary biannual research journal Vol. 1 Issue 2 January 2014 Postgraduate Department of English Manjeri, Malappuram, Kerala. www.singularities.in Chief Editor P. K. Babu., Ph. D Associate Professor & Head Postgraduate Dept. of English KAHM Unity Women's College, Manjeri. Members: Dr. K. K. Kunhammad, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Studies in English, Kannur University Mammad. N, Asst. Professor, Dept of English, Govt. College, Malappuram. Dr. Priya. K. Nair, Asst. Professor, Dept. of English, St. Teresa's College, Eranakulam. Aswathi. M . P., Asst. Professor, Dept of English, KAHM Unity Women's College, Manjeri. Advisory Editors: Dr. V. C. Haris School of Letters, M.G. University Kottayam Dr. M. V. Narayanan, Assoc. Professor, Dept of English, University of Calicut. Editor's Note The Bard refuses to fade away, despite the perception that his influence and others interest in him is on the wane. On the other hand, William Shakespeare seems to be thriving on the post 60s theory backed appropriations, spreading into New Media in varied avatars when the globe celebrates the 450th birth anniversary. From Jess Winfield's 'My Name is Will' to the 'Lion King' which vaguely echoes a Shakespeare plot line, this is what the readers realise. William Shakespeare may not be the 'inventor' of the 'Human' but he still holds the attention of readers, scholars and artistically minded as the facilitator of thoughts and the catalyst of concepts. This is an effort to gauge the academic interactions with the Bard as the world employs the 450th anniversary to further reweigh William Shakespeare's contemporary status. P. K. Babu., Ph. D Chief Editor Contents 1. Josy Joseph 07-13 Shakespeare in the 21st Century: Poetics, Politics, and Prospects 2. Mary Haritha. M.C 14-31 Macbeth Retranslations in Malayalam: A Contextual Analysis 3. Sarah R. Wakefield 32-37 Teaching Mythology via Titus Andronicus 4. Saptarshi Roy 38-43 Old Bard, New Wounds: Shakespeare, Liberties and Impossible Global Stage 5. Indrani Das Gupta 44-50 Gossips and Songs: Emergence of 'Subculture' in Othello 6. Parvin Sultana 51-57 Indigenizing Shakespeare: A study of Maqbool and Omkara 7. Joveeta Justin 58-64 Renouncing the Bard: Problematizing Shakespearian Authorship in Roland Emmerich's Anonymous (2011) 8. Dr. S. Kumaran 65-70 Lunacy versus Love: An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets 9. Salu D' Souza 71-76 The Comparison of Shakespeare's ' The Tempest' and the Unheard Saga of Indian Diaspora 10. Hyrun Fathima Nousheen 77-81 Shakespeare's Villains Are Stereotypes: Progressing Towards Humanness 11. Azeen Ratheesan 82-86 As You Like It?: Shakespeare in the Kerala Secondary School Classroom 12. Silpa Anand S 87-89 Echoing the Bard: Shakespearean Allusions in Animated Narratives 13. Preethi Sara Joseph 90-94 Rekindling the Old Flame: A New Pedagogy of the Universal Master 14. Hiren J. Patel 95-105 Translation as Negotiation: N.P.Dave's Denmark no Rajkumar, Hamlet (1917). 15. Manju.V.V. 106-111 Indianizing the Bard: A Diachronic Study of Shakespeare Reception in India 16. Maya Davi Chalissery 112-115 'I Am A Man More Sinn'd Against Than Sinning': An Evaluation 17. Abja G Rasheed 116-124 Shakespeare's Tragedies Rejuvenated: Manifestations in Different Theatre Movements 18. Neelima V. 125-127 Myriad Shades of Motherhood: Infanticide as a Maternal Agency in Macbeth 19. Parvathy. G 128-132 What's in a Name; Hamlet, The Lion King of Pride Lands and Romeo and Juliet in Zombie World of Warm Bodies- a Study on Unconventional Appropriations of Shakespeare in Modern Culture . 20. Shanu Mary William 133-136 Shakespeare through the Lens: A Socio- Cultural Study of Hamlet Adaptations 21. Shyama Ramsamy & Shashi Kumar S. B. 137-146 Shakespeare's Appropriations: Polyphony 22. Sini.K. 147-150 Comic Anagrorisis in Shakespeare- A Reading Of Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) 23. Dr.Abubakkar K.K 151-156 Enigma in Representation of the Other: a Critical Analysis of Shakespeare's Othello. Josy Joseph Shakespeare in the 21st Century: Poetics, Politics, and Prospects (Keynote Address delivered at the Two-day National seminar on Shakespeare Continuum, at KAHM Unity Women's College, Manjeri on 12 August 2014) This year, Shakespeare's 450th birth anniversary is celebrated the world over. And two years from now, we will be commemorating his 400th death anniversary as well. It's the Shakespeare season, so to say. All over the world, there are various programmes and projects underway to mark the occasion. One important global event is the touring Hamlet initiative of the Globe Theatre that will take a stripped-down version of the play to every country in the world. The tour involves a portable set and a 12-person, multicultural cast. Last Tuesday (05 August), there was a special performance inside a chamber in the UN headquarters at New York for some 500 guests, against a backdrop of real world crises in Gaza and the Ukraine (more on this later). The tour's goal is to visit 205 nations and territories in seven continents. It has already performed in places as diverse as opera halls, market places and beaches, hopes to visit all the world's countries, including Iraq, North Korea and Syria. They also hope to perform in the West Bank, though no firm plans have been announced. They will be coming to India as well. The journey began in London on April 23--the Bard's 450th birthday--and has already made stops from Amsterdam to Prague, Cyprus to Ukraine. It concludes at its home theatre on April 23, 2016 - the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Anniversaries are also good occasions for stock taking. And as part of the process, we need to raise the following questions: What accounts for Shakespeare's preeminence? How did he become the biggest literary icon, the biggest cultural brand in history? Will he continue to be as relevant or influential as before? Where will Shakespeare be in the 21st century? Let's take the first question concerning his greatness and unique stature. The widely held view is that Shakespeare is the greatest writer ever, and that he was a genius with unparalleled abilities, and that he had an unusual insight into and understanding of what is called 'human nature', and that there is very little in the broad spectrum of humanity that he hasn't touched upon, or possibility of life he hasn't represented. In the range of characters, life situations, emotional states, and knowledge-- bookish or experiential-- he has something or the other for every occasion. This enormous scope, the sheer ability to speak to and for all human beings for all times and for all places is what underscores his universal validity. What I have just outlined is a typical specimen of bardolatry. And it raises a lot of problems too. By the way, that portmanteau term was coined by Bernard Shaw, with ironic and sarcastic intent. And in the last four centuries, it has been an unending competition among Shakespeare enthusiasts to outdo one another in terms of showering praises on the bard. Ben Jonson began it, and except for a few like Tolstoy, Voltaire, or Shaw himself, most people have subscribed to the consensus. One of my favourite lines of bardolatry is by Edward Gibbon, the great 18th century historian, who referred to “the idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of Englishmen”. Even somebody like Harold Bloom talks about how Shakespeare's multiplicity far exceeds that of Dante or Chaucer. In his book, The Western Canon (1994), Bloom places Shakespeare at the Josy Joseph is Associate Professor in English, St. Berchmans College, Changanassery 7 Singularities Vol.1 Issue 2 August 2014 ISSN 2348 – 3369 centre of the canon, and argues how the creator of Hamlet and Falstaff, Rosalind and Cleopatra, Iago and Lear, differs in degree as well as in kind. Shakespeare excels all other Western writers in cognitive acuity, linguistic energy, and power of invention. It may be that all three endowments fuse in an ontological passion that is capacity for joy, or what Blake meant by his Proverb of Hell: exuberance is beauty”. One of the problems here in The Western Canon, is that the canon is Western, of course. A few years later, he stretched the logic further, and argued that 'human nature' as we understand it today is a Shakespearean invention. His 800 page book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998) is an attempt to prove it. It's indeed a surprising thought to come from a brilliant theorist who was once an important member of the Yale School of Deconstructionists, who wrote The Anxiety of Influence, a book that shaped the sensibility of a whole generation of readers and critics. Not all theorists would agree with Harold Bloom on the notion of 'human nature', even less on the Shakespearean claim. Shakespeare's universalism, in this sense, presupposes a singular, cogent, consistent human nature valid across time, place, and culture. However, from the middle of the 19th century, if not before, serious questions have been raised about the existence of a 'given' innate, and unchanging 'human nature'. And the advent of theory in the last quarter of the previous century only sealed the argument with irrefutable evidence. The work of philosophers, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and others has proved that a good deal of human behaviour, morality, religious belief, and social ordering is shaped by our response to local pressures of a more immediate, physical, and material sort, involving economics, climate, history, and the whole complex of culture, including beliefs, practices, and modes of perception. We now know how ideology works, both in society and on the individual.