Paratextuality in Shakespeares King Lear Essay example -- William Sha

Pitching Mad son How Paratextuality Mediates the Distance Between Spectators, Adaptations, and Source Texts.A popular anecdote used to introduce students and spectators to baron Lear tells how, for 150years, the stage was dominated by Nahum Tates adaptation, in which Lear and Cordelia arehappily reconciled, and Cordelia is married off to Edgar. Here is what N.H. Hudson had to say near TateThis shameless, this execrable patch of demendation. Tate improveLear? Set a tailor at work, rather, to improve Niagara Withered be thehand, palsied be the arm, that ever dares to touch one of Shakespearesplays again. (quoted in Massai 247)Of course, such sophisticated and erudite commentators as are assembled here today will bequick to point out a couple of ironies about Hudsons condemnation of Shakespeare adaptation.First, Shakespeare himself was an adaptor. Most if not all of his plays are adapted fromextant plays, renaissance romance novels, or even, as in the case I will be discussing today, oldNorse sagas. King Lear was adapted from an earlier play, which was itself based on Holinshedschronicles.Second, popular adaptations by Tate and Colley Cibber, among others, by makingShakespeare genial and tasteful to Restoration and Enlightenment audiences, played no smallpart in establishing Shakespeare at the centre of the literary canon (Massai 247). And as anafterthought, it might be worth noting that Tates adaptation does not so much ruin the originalKing Lear as restore it Tates happy ending is more(prenominal) faithful than Shakespeare toShakespeares sources, The True memoir History of King Leir and Holinsheds Chronicles.I mention this by way of introducing Michael OBriens Mad Boy Chronic... ...eares.ca/Massai, Sonia. Stage Over Study Charles Marowitz, Edward Bond, and Recent MaterialistApproaches to Shakespeare. New Theatre Quarterly 15, no. 3 59 (1999) 247-55.Morrow, Martin. A Viking Free for All. Rpt. in OBrien, Michael. Mad Boy Chronicle FromGesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, c. 1200 A.D. and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark byWilliam Shakespeare, c. 1600 A.D. 1st ed. Toronto Playwrights Canada Press, 1996. Pp.152-54.OBrien, Michael. Mad Boy Chronicle From Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, c. 1200A.D. and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, c. 1600 A.D. 1st ed. TorontoPlaywrights Canada Press, 1996.Shaner, Madeleine. Rev. of Mad Boy Chronicle, by Michael OBrien. 2001. Backstage West 28Sept. 2003. http//www.canadianshakespeares.ca/Stam, Robert. Film Theory An Introduction. Malden, Mass. Blackwell, 2000.