A puzzle: why should all translators the world over and down the centuries translate verse into verse, while we Arabs, who boast a rich tradition of verse, use prose to render Shakespeare’s sonnets? After many decades in which Shakespeare’s Arab
Biography and Shakespeare’s Money
Portraits of an Economic Persona
Paola Pugliatti
, then, the residuum that, as the first Greek biographer reminds us, should not be dissolved, is its capacity to describe ‘the general historical meaning of an individual’s life’. 11 The challenge of Shakespeare’s lives Let me now move on to Shakespeare
Adam Hansen
To arrest the meanings of words once and for all, that is what Terror wants. —Jean-François Lyotard, Rudiments païens This article joins the contributions of others in exploring some of the challenges of talking and thinking about Shakespeare in an
‘Shakespeare Had the Passion of an Arab’
The Appropriation of Shakespeare in Fadia Faqir’s Willow Trees Don’t Weep
Hussein A. Alhawamdeh
This article traces William Shakespeare’s echo in Willow Trees Don’t Weep (2014) by Fadia Faqir, a Jordanian/British novelist, to examine the function of Faqir’s appropriation of Shakespeare’s Othello (1604) and Cymbeline (1611) in creating
Shakespeare's Fools
A Piece in a Peacebuilding Mosaic
Maja Milatovic-Ovadia
In November 2017, Ratko Mladic, a war-time leader and a commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, was sentenced by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal to life imprisonment for the genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the region the verdict was received with conflicting reactions, emphasising yet again how extensive the ethnic division is within the society. Through close analysis of the theatre project Shakespeare’s Comedies performed by ethnically segregated youth in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article aims to understand how Shakespeare’s work functions as a vehicle to address the consequences of war and to support the complex process of reconciliation under circumstances in which the issues of war crimes cannot be tackled in a straightforward and direct manner. The study takes a cross-disciplinary approach to research, drawing from theory of reconciliation, applied theatre practice and comedy studies.
Shakespeare in Yosemite
Applied Theatre in a National Park
Katherine Steele Brokaw and Paul Prescott
Shakespeare in Yosemite, founded in 2017, consists of an annual outdoor production of Shakespeare in Yosemite National Park on the weekend closest to World Earth Day and Shakespeare’s birthday. The productions are site-specific and heavily adapted for a general audience; admission is free. In this article, the co-founders describe the origins and aims of the festival within the contexts of applied theatre, eco-criticism and the American tradition of free outdoor Shakespeare. In describing the festival’s inaugural show – a collage piece that counterpointed Shakespeare’s words with those of early environmentalist John Muir – we make the case for leveraging Shakespeare’s cultural currency to play a part (however small or unknowable) in encouraging environmental awareness and activism.
John Drakakis
’ translation offers some hints as to how we might read Athenian benevolence, liberality and aristocratic modesty, transplanted into early modern political and social discourse. Indeed, it is in Timon of Athens (c.1606) that Shakespeare, and a possible
Franziska Quabeck
equally address the audience. We judge. And in this play, we cannot help but judge the incredible futility of what is allegedly the most glamorous war of all time. In Shakespeare’s retelling, this legendary conflict is a cynical endeavour in which both
Responses to Responses to Shakespeare’s Sonnets
More Sonnets
Matthew Zarnowiecki
This article is an exploration of recent engagements with Shakespeare’s sonnets, primarily in the form of adaptations, appropriations, and responses, but also in the form of dramatizations and filmed recitations. It comes after long thought and a
Shakespeare and War
Honour at the Stake
Patrick Gray
actually got to college, my interests changed. Shakespeare began to consume my attention. Even so, I thought I might begin with this anecdote – a story of my own ‘road not taken’ – as a preamble to reintroducing some of the unforeseen events of the past two