Different translators have different motives—to preserve, to condemn, to apply, to illuminate and so on—which are helped or hindered by the different opportunities and obstacles presented by the conventions of a given literary mode. This paper will seek to elucidate the unique opportunities comedy presents to a translator, in this case William Shakespeare, of a play, The Brothers Menaechmus by Plautus. Due to the rules that govern comedy, Shakespeare was afforded the ability to move beyond creating a copy of Plautus and merge his work with the original: The Comedy of Errors is an adaptation of Menaechmus, but it is also a continuation of its predecessor. Shakespeare’s play should not be viewed as simply a separate and original work; it is that, but it is also the second part of a single, larger whole. By looking at how wordplay and repetition function in the world of comedy, simple devices like punning and the running gag can provide a template for addressing more complex issues like the contiguity of thematic concerns across both works.
It is common knowledge that a joke imported from one language to another loses something in the translation, and, like all common knowledge, this is true up to a point. If the translator attempts to import the joke word-by-word into the new language, something will indeed be lost and the joke will almost certainly fail. That literal translation does not work for comedy, however, should not be viewed as a problem for translation but merely a problem for the literal-minded, for comedy is not the realm of the literal. Characters who adhere too closely to the literal rules of words and customs tend to find themselves in dire straits, and translators of comedy should take their cue from this...
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Transformations are altering certain thematic concerns of the original text, yet still retaining much of the storyline. The process of transformation requires some conscious decisions which shape and re-shape the meaning, and must be justified in order to execute them. . This is explored in ‘BBC’s Shakespeare Re-told: Much ado about Nothing”, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s original playwright “Much ado about Nothing”
Shakespeare's comedies A Midsummers Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing have many parallels while Measure for Measure is a problem play with a completely different tone. Comparing and contrasting these three plays provides insights into the views of Shakespeare concerning comedy.
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987. (page 23-37)
No, the “English Tragedy” does not relate to the Queen, that is the first fact that should be established. Instead, it is about English, the language itself. George Orwell warned readers of the negative consequences stemming from the degrading quality of English in both 1984 and his essay “Politics and the English Language”. In both pieces of writing, Orwell is able to demonstrate the effects that language can have on the thoughts of those who speak it. In 1984, he is able to emphasize how the lack of language can limit thought, and ultimately society. In “Politics and the English Language”, Orwell demonstrates how bad English will, “construct your sentences for you” (Orwell, 6) and make the language into a meaningless jumble. Although Orwell wrote in the earlier part of the 1900s, the bad English that he wrote about is still relevant today. Dying metaphors, meaningless words, and pretentious diction are still used in writing by the mainstream media despite the warnings of Orwell.
In I Henry IV and II Henry IV, William Shakespeare brings together drama and comedy to create two of the most compelling history plays ever written. Many of Shakespeare's other works are nearly absolute in their adherence to either the comic or tragic traditions, but in the two Henry IV plays Shakespeare combines comedy and drama in ways that seem to bring a certain realism to his characters, and thus the plays. The present essay is an examination of the various and significant effects that Shakespeare's comedic scenes have on I Henry IV and II Henry IV. The Diversity of Society
Misunderstandings generate conflict and drive stories forward. William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is a play filled to the brim with misunderstandings and comedic situations. The constable of Messina, Dogberry, contributes to many such comedic situations with his twisted speech and juxtaposing sobriety. In this essay, Dogberry’s reality, character, and wrongly-used phrases are to be compared to actual reality.
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987.
Cohen, Walter, J.E. Howard, K. Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare. Vol. 2 Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. New York, London. 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-92991-1
One of Shakespeare’s great pieces of work, Hamlet, has been divided to alternate versions Quarto 1and Quarto 2. Focusing on Act I Scene iii, apparently the differences in these two versions are mainly on the way the characters are formed and the language that is used. Quarto 1 is a much more compact version that has weakly defined characters and uninformed language. As for Quarto 2 this lack of complexity is not so. This version has a higher quality of character depth and a language that is more comprehensible to allow more meaning to the play. Nonetheless the mutuality between these two versions main idea are clearly the significant mutilations to these scene are factors that make the play have a different meaning. The Quarto that would be most appealing to actors and the one that would be more fulfilling to the reader would be the second one because of it richness in characters and language.
What is so interesting about Shakespeare's first play, The Comedy of Errors, are the elements it shares with his last plays. The romances of his final period (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest) all borrowed from the romantic tradition, particularly the Plautine romances. So here, as in the later plays, we have reunions of lost children and parents, husbands and wives; we have adventures and wanderings, and the danger of death (which in this play is not as real to us as it is in the romances). Yet, for all these similarities, the plot of The Comedy of Errors is as simple as the plots of the later plays are complex. It is as though Shakespeare's odyssey through the human psyche in tragedy and comedy brought him back to his beginnings with a sharper sense of yearning, poignancy, and the feeling of loss. But to dismiss this play as merely a simplistic romp through a complicated set of maneuvers is to miss the pure theatrical feast it offers on the stage - the wit and humor of a master wordsmith, the improbability of a plot that sweeps...
William Shakespeare has become landmark in English literature. One must be familiar with the early days of English literature in order to comprehend the foundation of much of more modern literature’s basis. Shakespeare’s modern influence is still seen clearly in many ways. The success of Shakespeare’s works helped to set the example for the development of modern dramas and plays. He is also acknowledged for being one of the first writers to use any modern prose in his writings.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles Oedipus the King have long been included on academic lists for scholarly study as literary texts. As someone who has studied both texts in just the manner Hornby mentions, I would suggest that what is lost when a scholar treats a play text as literature is precisely that `central part of the play's meaning' which is illuminated by consideration of how a play was `designed to work on stage'. I intend to look at the crucial opening moments of each play, heeding Hornby's words, and keeping the text's status as `pretext' to an eventual performance very much at the forefront of my analysis.
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987.
As the roles were essentially cemented into the culture, manipulations such as crossovers provide a source of conflict and intrigue into the narrative of the plays. Two of Shakespea...