SHAKESPEARE AND MODERN VERSIONS OF HIS PLAYS: VARIATIONS AND DEPARTURES
SHAKESPEARE AND MODERN VERSIONS OF HIS PLAYS: VARIATIONS AND DEPARTURES

Summary/Abstract: The first part of this text attempts to clarify the criteria by which the 'betrayal' of Shakespeare by numerous, lovingly undertaken presentations of his work, can be distinguished from works in which, in spite of seemingly drastic modifications and departures, Shakespeare's conception of art continues to unfold, and to demonstrate its relevance. The Shakespeare, which true artists find impossible to overlook or betray, is the 'mythic' Shakespeare, analyzed at great length in Ted Hughes' Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being (1992), and evident, as Hughes claims, when Shakespeare, the familiar "realist psychologist and impersonator", is examined more closely. The second part of the text deals with the approaches to this 'mythic' Shakespeare in the works of the great modernists Eliot, Lawrence, and Joyce. The two sections represent an introduction to the study of modern versions of Shakespeare's plays inspired by the recognition and exploration of this 'mythic' bard. The analysis covers the works of Heiner Muller, Robert Wilson, Robert Lepage, Tom Stoppard, Arnold Wesker, John Herbert, Edward Bond, Howard Barker, Jean Anouilh, Eugene Ionesco, Pola Vogel, Ann-Marie MacDonald, and others.

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