Shakespeare on the page in Romania: before and after 1989

George Volceanov

doi:10.5817/TY2021-S-3

Shakespeare on the page in Romania: before and after 1989

Vol.24,No.Special Issue(2021)

George Volceanov

https://doi.org/10.5817/TY2021-S-3

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/143672

PDF

Abstract

This article aims to identify the evolution of Shakespeare's reception in Romania – not as a powerful icon of world drama, i.e., not from the viewpoint of performance criticism, but as the subject of reference books written in Romania in the Communist and the post-Communist age, respectively. The history of Shakespeare monographs and collective volumes produced in the interval examined here has three distinct phases: (1) the first, spanning from 1945 to 1965, reveals the strong influence of Russian Bolshevik ideology; (2) in the second phase, overlapping Nicolae Ceauşescu's national-Communist dictatorship, Shakespearean criticism, paradoxically, appears to be freed from the impositions of Communist ideology; (3) the postCommunist decades witness the emergence of at least two generations of Shakespeare scholars who write mostly in English, either for a foreign readership (participating in the newly developed cultural exchanges of the 'global village') or for Romanian readers that are speakers of English – hence, a gap appears between the works of local Shakespeare scholars and the national culture.

Keywords:
Shakespeare; book; Communist ideology; global village; national culture

Pages:
33–46

References

BARBU, N. I. et al. 1967. Istoria literaturii universale [A History of World Literature]. București: Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, 1967.

BRÎNZEU, Pia. 1978. Dramatic Art and Technique in Othello. Timișoara: Editura Universităţii de Vest, 1978.

BŽOCHOVÁ-WILD, Jana. 2014. 'Now […] what is your text?' Translating & Publishing Shakespeare in Slovak. In Jana Bžochová-Wild (ed.). 'In double trust': Shakespeare in Central Europe. Bratislava: Vysoká škola múzických umení, Divadelná fakulta, 2014: 73–102.

CETERA, Anna. 2014. Be Patient till the Last: The Censor's Lesson on Shakespeare. In Jana Bžochová-Wild (ed.). 'In double trust': Shakespeare in Central Europe. Bratislava: Vysoká škola múzických umení, Divadelná fakulta, 2014: 129–150.

CINPOEȘ, Nicoleta. 2010. Shakespeare's Hamlet in Romania, 1778–2008. Lewiston and New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.

CUNNINGHAM, Valentine. 2002. Reading after Theory. Oxford and Malden: Blackwell, 2002.

DRÁBEK, Pavel. 2014. From the General of the Scottish Army to a Fattish Beer-Drinker: A Short History of Czech Translations of Macbeth. In Jana Bžochová-Wild (ed.). 'In double trust': Shakespeare in Central Europe. Bratislava: Vysoká škola múzických umení, Divadelná fakulta, 2014: 53–72.

DRESEN, Adolf. 2001. The Last Remains of the Public Sphere. In J. Lawrence Guntner and Andrew M. McLean (eds.). Redefining Shakespeare: Literary Theory and Theatre Practice in the German Democratic Republic. Newark and London: University of Delaware Press and Associated University Presses, 2001: 151–162.

GUNTNER, J. Lawrence. 2001. Introduction: Shakespeare in East Germany: Between Appropriation and Deconstruction. In J. Lawrence Guntner and Andrew M. McLean (eds.). Redefining Shakespeare: Literary Theory and Theatre Practice in the German Democratic Republic. Newark and London: University of Delaware Press and Associated University Presses, 2001: 29–57.

MAROWITZ, Charles. 1988. Reconstructing Shakespeare or Harlotry in Bardolatry. Shakespeare Survey 40 (1988): 3–10.

MATEI-CHESNOIU, Monica. 2006. Shakespeare in the Romanian Cultural Memory. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006.

MATEI-CHESNOIU, Monica (ed.). 2009. Shakespeare în Romania. Texte 1836–1016 [Shakespeare in Romania. Texts 1836–1916]. București: Editura Academiei Române, 2009.

MILICĂ, Iulia. 2012. William Shakespeare in Communist Romania: Freedom and Limitation in Romanian Editions. Trãduçao em Revista 12 (2012): 18–38.

MINIER, Márta. 2014. Uprooting Shakespeare. A Historical Survey of Early to Institutionalised Hungarian Shakespeare Translation. In Jana Bžochová-Wild (ed.). 'In double trust': Shakespeare in Central Europe. Bratislava: Vysoká škola múzických umení, Divadelná fakulta, 2014: 29–51.

MIŠTEROVA, Ivona. 2020. Personal email correspondence with the author (21. 08. 2020).

PUNGĂ, Loredana and Dana PERCEC. 2019. The Shakespearean Translator – Ariel or Caliban? SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation 12 (2019): 2: 83–92. [accessed on 23.01.2021]. Available online at http://www.skase.sk/Volumes/JTI17/pdf_doc/06.pdf.

SHAKESPEARE, William. 2001. King Lear. Ed. by Stanley Wells. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

SHAKESPEARE, William. 2016. Regele Lear [King Lear]. Transl. by Mihnea Gheorghiu. In William Shakespeare. Opere V. București: Academia Română și Muzeul Naţional al Literaturii Române, 2016: 747–942.

SOCIETY for Renaissance Studies. 2020. Imaginary Performances in Shakespeare (24. 08. 2020). [accessed on 23.01.2021]. Available online at https://www.rensoc.org.uk/event/imaginaryperformances-in-shakespeare/.

VOLCEANOV, George. 2010. Contending Translations of The Tempest in Present-day Romania. Synergy 6 (2010): 2: 172–188.

VOLCEANOV, George. 2013. Paradoxurile muzicii pop/rock/folk românești din anii comunismului. [The Paradoxes of Pop/Rock/Folk Music in Communist Romania]. Observator cultural 678, (21.06. 2013): 4–5.

Metrics