Literature and performance

Reflect on how an understandin" rel="nofollow">ing of the variability of performance challenges our understandin" rel="nofollow">ing of what constitutes literary ‘authenticity’. At what poin" rel="nofollow">int does a text pass from bein" rel="nofollow">ing Shakespeare to bein" rel="nofollow">ing somethin" rel="nofollow">ing different? What is Shakespeare? Thin" rel="nofollow">inkin" rel="nofollow">ing of the discussions we have had over the last few units, how might you respond to these questions? Scholars offer a number of perspectives: 1. Shakespeare the Brand: Sonia Massai suggests that sin" rel="nofollow">ince the rise in" rel="nofollow">in Shakespearean appropriations and their significance in" rel="nofollow">in mass culture as well as traditional or conventional cultural production “Shakespeare has effectively become a successful logo or brand name”. 19 2. Shakespeare the Cultural Text: Piere Bourdieu’s idea that “the producer of a work of art is not the artist but the field of production as a universe of belief which produces the value of the work of art as a fetish” 20 offers the possibility of thin" rel="nofollow">inkin" rel="nofollow">ing of Shakespeare as the product of responses to his work. For Kennedy, in" rel="nofollow">intercultural performance remin" rel="nofollow">inds us ultimately that: Shakespeare is foreign to all of us...in" rel="nofollow">in English the language will always be important to our appreciation, yet our ability to reach the plays directly in" rel="nofollow">in their origin" rel="nofollow">inal language lessens year by year [...] reflectin" rel="nofollow">ing on performances outside of English, we can see more clearly how Shakespeare is alien, as well as what we contin" rel="nofollow">inue to fin" rel="nofollow">ind in" rel="nofollow">indigenous or domestic about him. What is it that endures when he is deprived of his tongue? It is a question that will haunt the future. 21 This question is also one which clearly haunts receptions of in" rel="nofollow">intercultural Shakespeares. Bein" rel="nofollow">ing both familiar and alien, performances like Kathakali Kin" rel="nofollow">ing Lear foreground the question of authenticity, challenge a cultural construction of Shakespeare and, ultimately, force us to question Shakespeare as a national text. These concerns are played out no-where more clearly perhaps than in" rel="nofollow">in critical responses.