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Transforming Shakespeare

Name: Transforming Shakespeare
Author: Marianne Novy
ISBN: 9780312235093

by Marianne Novy

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Overview

A surprisingly large number of women writers, directors, and performers have created works that talk back to Shakespeare, or to most earlier and more traditional interpretations of his plays, in the late 20th century. For example, Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, which rewrites King Lear, and Marina Warner’sIndigo, which rewrites The Tempest, protest biases against women and racist and imperialist attitudes that Shakespeare’s plays have come to symbolize. In this collection, feminist critics—and Jane Smiley herself—explore a range of such rewritings, as well as recent Shakespeare performances directed by women.

About the Author, Marianne Novy

Marianne Novy is Professor of English and former Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author ofLove’s Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare and the editor of Women’s Re-Visions of Shakespeare.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Through film, stage, the novel, and poetry, women are revisiting and reinterpreting Shakespeare from a distinctively feminist viewpoint. These well-written and accessible essays show how contemporary women subvert or expand upon his original texts, covering subjects as diverse as ecofeminism, colonialism, incest, and production styles. Novy (English, Univ. of Pittsburgh) makes a wonderful and unusual editorial decision in the extended and multifaceted interest given to the reinterpretation of King Lear in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres (including two critical essays and a personal account from Smiley). Linda Bamber's chapter, "Claribel at Palace Dot Tunis," also works well within this collection as an example of a way in which a woman approaches the Shakespeare text as a writer of fiction and literary criticism, blending the concerns of this collection in theory and in practice. Recommended for academic libraries.--Karen E. Sadowski, Simmons Coll., Boston

Booknews

A surprisingly large number of women writers, directors, and performers have created works that respond to Shakespeare and to more traditional interpretations of his plays. In this collection, feminist critics explore such rewritings, as well as recent Shakespeare performances directed by women. They examine how these works use rewritings of Shakespeare to address issues of gender, race, sexuality, colonialism, and class, as well as the general question of our relation to cultural tradition at the start of the new millennium. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)