Remembering Shakespeare in India: colonial and postcolonial memory

Chaudhuri, Supriya

doi:10.1017/cbo9781107337466.006

Cited by 4 publications

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“…As Supriya Chaudhuri argues, commemorations 'negotiate multiple temporalities', bringing together 'different kinds of time-the "universal" time of the classic, the sedimented time of history, and the time of the reformed present'. 4 The purpose of this negotiation or, as Skemp calls it, this 'linking' of temporalities, is to produce another kind of link: a mutual binding of those who participate in the commemorative activity into a cohesive group. Through a collective memorialisation, individual 'selves' become 'ourselves'-us, a unified community.…”

Section: Shakespearean Commemorations and Collective Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Memorialising Shakespeare, Memorialising Ourselves

Śmiałkowska

King

2021

Palgrave Shakespeare Studies

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This introductory chapter starts by situating Shakespeare commemoration in the context of recent theory on cultural and collective memory. It then examines the relationship between literary memorialisation and the nation state before problematising commemoration events outside Europe in the context of postcolonial and decolonial theory. Commemoration events have become fraught, it suggests, because of a growing tendency to focus on the politics of the present. This presentist position, which typically represents the values and interests of the past and present as radically opposed to one another, presents challenges for traditional modes of memorialisation, which in the past have sought to demonstrate positive links and continuities between the literatures and cultures of past and present. The introduction concludes with a set of detailed summaries of the chapters in the volume.

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Section: Shakespearean Commemorations and Collective Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Memorialising Shakespeare, Memorialising Ourselves

Śmiałkowska

King

2021

Palgrave Shakespeare Studies

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“…24–25) 1 . While the classroom in colonial India was “the major channel of propagation of Shakespearean texts” (Das, 2001, p. 65), Shakespeare also came to be appreciated as “an inventor of plots and characters that could be freely adapted and repurposed for the use of the stage” (Chaudhuri, 2015, p. 102). The Bengali literati who were introduced to Shakespeare in the English language primarily in an academic context translated or adapted his plays for a broader audience.…”

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confidence: 99%

“Folly of the Fiction” and the “Native Taste”: Cultural Interfaces in Two Bengali Adaptations ofCymbeline

Sarkar

2022

Literature Compass

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This article examines how two nineteenth‐century Bengali adaptations of Cymbeline transfer Shakespeare's play to a Hindu field of signifiers and reinterpret the elements of tragicomedy according to the worldview of traditional Indian drama. Kusumkumari Natak (1868) by Chandrakali Ghosh, which was enacted before a ticket‐buying audience at the nascent phase of the Bengali public theatre in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), condenses or rejects much of the action and dialogue of Cymbeline for the sake of economy. For example, it excludes Cloten and the confusion over his beheading and discards Posthumus's dream together with the prophetic riddle. On the other hand, Sushila Birsingha (1868) by Satyendranath Tagore, which was probably never staged, follows the convoluted plot and characterisation of Cymbeline quite closely. Cymbeline would appeal to the Bengali audience because it recalls traditional Hindu tales of reunion and reconciliation, including those of Sakuntala‐Dushyanta (referenced by Kusumkumari Natak) and Damayanti‐Nala (referenced by Sushila Birsingha). Moreover, Innogen's ordeals would be compatible with the trope of the abandoned faithful wife (as exemplified by Sita, Sakuntala, Damayanti) in Sanskrit epic and drama. This would also enable the valorisation of wifely fidelity and chastity, a favourite topic of Hindu patriarchal imagination in the nineteenth century. More importantly, the theme of loss and recuperation inherent in Cymbeline accords with the episteme and aesthetics of classical Sanskrit drama, which avoided exploring grave moral challenges and rejected the finality of sufferings (thanks to the doctrines of Vedanta or monistic theism, karma and reincarnation). This article also suggests that Cymbeline fell out of favour with subsequent Bengali translators and playgoers as the taste for tragedy grew among them.

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Teaching Shakespeare in the Indian (Google) Classroom: The Digital Promise and the Digital Divide

Mukherjee

2022

Global Shakespeares

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Remembering Shakespeare in India: colonial and postcolonial memory

Cited by 4 publications

References 1 publication

Introduction: Memorialising Shakespeare, Memorialising Ourselves

Introduction: Memorialising Shakespeare, Memorialising Ourselves

“Folly of the Fiction” and the “Native Taste”: Cultural Interfaces in Two Bengali Adaptations ofCymbeline

Teaching Shakespeare in the Indian (Google) Classroom: The Digital Promise and the Digital Divide

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