Shakespeare in the World

Suddhaseel Sen is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Bombay. He has a PhD in English (Collaborative Programme in South Asian Studies) from the University of Toronto and a second PhD in Musicology from Stanford University. Sen has been a Research Fellow for the Balzan Research Project, Towards a Global History of Music, directed by Reinhard Strohm. His publications include essays on Shakespeare adaptations; cross-cultural exchanges between Indian and British musicians; Richard Wagner and German Orientalism; nineteenth-century Bengali literature and culture; and films by Satyajit Ray and Vishal Bhardwaj, among others.

List of Musical Examples

Acknowledgements

Preliminary Notes

Introduction

Shakespeare’s Reception in Non-Anglophone Cultures: Analytical Paradigms

Theorising Shakespeare Reception Relationally

Shakespeare and “Nationalist Cosmopolitanism”

Adaptation Theory and Cross-Cultural Receptions of Shakespeare

The Case Studies: Patterns and Interconnections

PART 1

1 Shakespeare Reception in France: Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet and Its Intertexts

Introduction

Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Texts and Performances up to the Nineteenth Century

Hamlet in France: From Ducis to Dumas and Meurice

Thomas’s Hamlet as Opera Lyrique

The Operatic Ophélie

The Afterlife of Thomas’s Hamlet

2 Nationalism and Aesthetic Self-Fashioning: Giuseppe

Verdi’s Otello

Introduction

Jealousy and Vengeance in Othello and Otello (i): Racial Discourses

Jealousy and Vengeance in Othello and Otello (ii): Religious Discourses

Jealousy and Vengeance in Othello and Otello (iii): The Pressures of Patriarchy

Verdi’s Musical Choices and the Subversion of Racial Stereotypes regarding Jealousy

Conclusion

PART 2

3 Challenging the Civilising Mission: Responses to The Tempest by Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore

Introduction

Bankim and Bengali Literature After 1857

Bankim’s Life and Literary Career

Kapālakunḍalā: Plot and Intertexts

The Tempest, Kapālakunḍalā, and Women in Nineteenth-Century Bengal (i): A Historical Perspective

The Tempest, Kapālakunḍalā, and Women in Nineteenth-Century Bengal (ii): A Symbolic Perspective

Bankim, Tagore, and the Reception History of The Tempest

4 Two Contrasting Cases of Transculturation of Shakespeare From Nineteenth-Century Bengal: Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s Bhrāntivilās and Girishchandra Ghosh’s Macbeth

Introduction

Part I: Vidyasagar’s Bhrāntivilās

Life and Times of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar

Rereading The Comedy of Errors: Bhrāntivilās and Its Intertexts

Bhrāntivilās and Feminist Readings of Errors

Part II: Girishchandra Ghosh’s Macbeth

The Life and Career of Girishchandra Ghosh

Girishchandra Ghosh’s Macbeth: A Case of Colonial Mimicry?

Conclusion

Contents

Conclusion

Adaptation Studies: Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches

Nationalist Cosmopolitanism and Post-Colonial Mimicry

Cross-Cultural Shakespeare and New Analytical Frameworks

Appendix 1 “Imitation”

Appendix 2 “Śakuntalā, Miranda, and Desdemona”

References

Index