Shakespeare Translated

Shakespeare's works are constantly being translated into new contexts, a fact which demonstrates the vitality of his plots in contemporary settings. Shakespeare Translated looks at the way certain plays particularly Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear have been recontextualized into films like O and King of Texas, or television shows such as «The Gilmore Girls», «Cheers», and «Clueless». This book illustrates how Romeo and Juliet is the most shamelessly appropriated of Shakespeare's scripts for contemporary use because its plot fits so neatly into the teenage culture that has burgeoned since the late 1950s. Shakespeare Translated looks at what has happened to Shakespeare, for better or more often for worse, as the new millennium begins.

Autorentext

The Author: H. R. Coursen has published seventeen books on Shakespeare, twenty-one novels, and thirty books of poetry. A fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, he became a member of Veterans for Peace as the war in Vietnam developed. He teaches at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Maine at Augusta. A poll in 1996 by Penn State University named him one of the 25 «master teachers of Shakespeare during the twentieth century».

Zusammenfassung
"An emerging area within the broader field of performance-centered Shakespearean criticism concentrates on televised performances, and to it no one has contributed more in recent years than H. R. Coursen." (Philip McGuire, Studies in English Literature)
"Coursen provides an elegant reading of the play's textual history, sources, structure and themes, criticism, and performance history." (William Worthen, on 'A Guide to the Tempest' in 'Studies in English Literature')