Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation Reproducing Shakespeare: New Studies in Adaptation and Appropriation Reproducing Shakespeare marks the turn in adaptation studies toward recon- textualization, reformatting, and media convergence. It builds on two decades of growing interest in the “afterlife” of Shakespeare, showcasing some of the best new work of this kind currently being produced. The series addresses the repurposing of Shakespeare in different technical, cultural, and performance formats, emphasizing the uses and effects of Shakespearean texts in both national and global networks of reference and communication. Studies in this series pursue a deeper understanding of how and why cul- tures recycle their classic works, and of the media involved in negotiating these transactions. Series Editors Thomas Cartelli, Muhlenberg College Katherine Rowe, Bryn Mawr College Published by Palgrave Macmillan: The English Renaissance in Popular Culture: An Age for All Time Edited by Greg Colón Semenza Extramural Shakespeare By Denise Albanese The Afterlife of Ophelia Edited by Kaara L. Peterson and Deanne Williams Spectral Shakespeares: Media Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century By Maurizio Calbi Shakespeare’s Surrogates: Rewriting Renaissance Drama By Sonya Freeman Loftis Bollywood Shakespeares Edited by Craig Dionne and Parmita Kapadia Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation Edited by Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation Edited by Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin SHAKESPEARE AND THE ETHICS OF APPROPRIATION Copyright © Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin, 2014. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-37576-6 All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-47744-9 ISBN 978-1-137-37577-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137375773 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shakespeare and the ethics of appropriation / edited by Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin. pages cm.—(Reproducing Shakespeare) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Adaptations—History and criticism. 2. Moral conditions in literature. 3. Ethics in literature. I. Huang, Alexa, 1973– editor. II. Rivlin, Elizabeth J., 1971– editor. PR2880.A1S573 2014 822.3(cid:25)3—dc23 2014015391 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: October 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation 1 Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin Chapter 1 Shakespearean Rhizomatics: Adaptation, Ethics, Value 21 Douglas Lanier Chapter 2 Recognizing Shakespeare, Rethinking Fidelity: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Appropriation 41 Christy Desmet Chapter 3 Ethics and the Undead: Reading Shakespearean (Mis)appropriation in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula 59 Adrian Streete Chapter 4 Adaptation Revoked: Knowledge, Ethics, and Trauma in Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres 73 Elizabeth Rivlin Chapter 5 Double Jeopardy: Shakespeare and Prison Theater 89 Courtney Lehmann Chapter 6 Theater Director as Unelected Representative: Sulayman Al-Bassam’s Arab Shakespeare Trilogy 107 Margaret Litvin Chapter 7 A “Whirl of Aesthetic Terminology”: Swinburne, Shakespeare, and Ethical Criticism 131 Robert Sawyer vi (cid:77) Contents Chapter 8 “Raw-Savage” Othello: The First-Staged Japanese Adaptation of Othello (1903) and Japanese Colonialism 145 Yukari Yoshihara Chapter 9 The Bard in Bollywood: The Fraternal Nation and Shakespearean Adaptation in Hindi Cinema 161 Gitanjali Shahani and Brinda Charry Chapter 10 Multilingual Ethics in Henry V and Henry VIII 179 Ema Vyroubalová Chapter 11 In Other Words: Global Shakespearean Transformations 193 Sheila T. Cavanagh Afterword “State of Exception”: Forgetting Hamlet 211 Thomas Cartelli Appendix For the Record: Conversation with Sulayman Al-Bassam 221 Bibliography 241 Notes on Contributors 257 Index 261 Acknowledgments Alexa Huang and Ton Hoenselaars led a seminar on “Shakespeare, Appropriation, and the Ethical” at the 2007 Shakespeare Association of America Meeting in San Diego. That conversation germinated ideas for the present book. Some of the seminar members’ contributions are part of this volume, while more essays were commissioned on other occasions. The editors are grateful to Tom Cartelli and Katherine Rowe for their support and inclusion of the book in their series, “Reproducing Shakespeare: New Studies in Adaptation and Appropriation.” We would like to thank the anonymous reader for invaluable feedback, and we express our gratitude to Brigitte Shull, Naomi Tarlow, and Ryan Jenkins at Palgrave Macmillan, who were both patient and encouraging during the lengthy process of editing this volume. Research support from the editors’ institu- tions has played a crucial role in the completion of the book. Elizabeth Rivlin thanks Clemson University for a generous sabbatical leave and Cameron Bushnell, Erin Goss, Michael LeMahieu, and Brian McGrath for their excellent suggestions about improving the introduction. Alexa Huang thanks her research assistant, Katherine Bradshaw at George Washington University, for her hard work and editorial acumen, especially with the bibliography. Alexa Huang, George Washington University, and Elizabeth Rivlin, Clemson University INTRODUCTION Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin The 2012 London Olympics ushered in a new era of global Shakespearean appropriation. The Globe-to-Globe festival, held in conjunction with the Olympics, brought theater companies from many parts of the world to the United Kingdom to perform Shakespeare in their own languages (“37 plays in 37 languages”). Globe-to-Globe suggested the ethical aspirations of such ambitious Shakespearean events as well as their conflicts and contradictions. Self-conscious about international poli- tics and the guilty pleasure of festive cosmopolitanism, Globe-to-Globe’s website promised that the festival “will be a carnival of stories,” including inspirational ones of the companies “who work underground and in war zones.”1 By giving expression to marginalized, oppressed, and disenfran- chised cultural voices, Shakespeare becomes a vehicle of empowerment, an agent to foster the multicultural good. Yet the global reach of this festival and others of its kind also invites pressing questions: How does Shakespeare make other cultures legible to Anglo-American audiences? What does it entail for the British media to judge touring productions of Shakespeare from around the world? What roles do non-Western identities, aesthetics, and idi- oms play in the rise of Shakespearean cinema and theater as global genres? To what extent do non-Western Shakespeare productions act as fetishized commodities in the global marketplace? Shakespearean celebrations on an international scale continue through the decade, tied to the landmark years of 2014 (the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth) and 2016 (the 400th 2 (cid:77) Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin anniversary of his death). In an age when Shakespeare is increasingly glo- balized, diversified, spread thin, and applied in service of a multitude of agendas, it is more urgent than ever to analyze the ethical ramifications, byproducts, and problems that inevitably attend such appropriations. To tackle the range of issues involved, this volume is organized around the three words in our title: Shakespeare, ethics, and appropriation. The first refers to a biographically known person and his works, but also, and especially important for our purposes, to a signifier with rich and unstable connotations. The second term, ethics, is notoriously difficult to define, but most people agree that ethics focus on how human beings should act and treat one another and, in particular, what constitutes a good action.2 In our contemporary context, ethics are often interpreted specifically in terms of a responsibility to cultural otherness. The third term, appropriation, introduces difficult questions about the relationship between Shakespeare and ethics. With its connotations of aggressive seizure and forced posses- sion, it might suggest that Shakespeare is a signifier that can be seized and deployed—against Shakespeare’s will, as it were.3 From this perspective, appropriation might seem inherently unethical. Yet, to borrow from Diana Henderson, we could also say that Shakespeare “collaborates” with and inter- venes in appropriations: perhaps Shakespeare need not be a passive victim in the transaction.4 Precisely because appropriation carries strong overtones of agency, potentially for the appropriated as well as for the appropriator, it can convey political, cultural, and in our contention, ethical advocacy. The fact of appropriation therefore does not prescribe in advance a particular ethical stance but does make evident its status as an act and its entanglement with ethics. In choosing appropriation over adaptation, the most common alternative, we do not pretend that these two terms are mutually exclusive— indeed, the term adaptation appears in the introduction and several of the essays—but seek to highlight the active potential of appropriation and the openness of its forms, which encompass cultural deployments in addition to discrete works. Combining our three title words, the volume considers the following questions: What are some ways to describe and define the ethics of Shakespearean appropriation? How do ethics intersect with aesthetics, authority, and authenticity? What can the “ethics of appropriation” add to the analysis of Shakespeare’s afterlife? Most fundamentally, we assert, ethics is an essential, often missed, term in discussions of Shakespeare and appropriation. To address and redress this lack, the essays in this volume come at the interrelation of the three terms in several ways. Some contributors explore how ethical issues in Shakespeare’s plays have been received and interpreted, others study the