Cardenio between Cervantes and Shakespeare: The Story of a Lost Play
- ISBN-10
- 0745683320
- ISBN-13
- 9780745683324
- Category
- Literary Criticism
- Pages
- 256
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-02-27
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons
- Author
- Roger Chartier
Description
How should we read a text that does not exist, or present a play the manuscript of which is lost and the identity of whose author cannot be established for certain? Such is the enigma posed by Cardenio – a play performed in England for the first time in 1612 or 1613 and attributed forty years later to Shakespeare (and Fletcher). Its plot is that of a ‘novella’ inserted into Don Quixote, a work that circulated throughout the major countries of Europe, where it was translated and adapted for the theatre. In England, Cervantes’ novel was known and cited even before it was translated in 1612 and had inspired Cardenio. But there is more at stake in this enigma. This was a time when, thanks mainly to the invention of the printing press, there was a proliferation of discourses. There was often a reaction when it was feared that this proliferation would become excessive, and many writings were weeded out. Not all were destined to survive, in particular plays for the theatre, which, in many cases, were never published. This genre, situated at the bottom of the literary hierarchy, was well suited to the existence of ephemeral works. However, if an author became famous, the desire for an archive of his works prompted the invention of textual relics, the restoration of remainders ruined by the passing of time or, in order to fill in the gaps, in some cases, even the fabrication of forgeries. Such was the fate of Cardenio in the eighteenth century. Retracing the history of this play therefore leads one to wonder about the status, in the past, of works today judged to be canonical. In this book the reader will rediscover the malleability of texts, transformed as they were by translations and adaptations, their migrations from one genre to another, and their changing meanings constructed by their various publics. Thanks to Roger Chartier’s forensic skills, fresh light is cast upon the mystery of a play lacking a text but not an author.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2016-03-21
- 256 pages
- Ebook
- John Wiley & Sons
Similar books
-
Virginia Woolf and the Great War
By Karen L. LevenbackI owe special thanks to Bruce Martin and Evelyn Timberlake ( at the Library of Congress ) ; Philip Milato and Steve Crook ( at the Berg Collection ) ...
-
In Search of Elena Ferrante: The Novels and the Question of Authorship
By Karen Bojar... Alice: “In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens” 157 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 38 Wertenbaker, Timberlake 21 Wilson, Emily (trans.
-
Native American Verbal Art: Texts and Contexts
By William M. ClementsHENRY TIMBERLAKE'S CHEROKEE WAR SONG 1. That Timberlake's memoir contains the first English translation of the words of a Native American song seems to have ...
-
Playing in the Shadows: Fictions of Race and Blackness in Postwar Japanese Literature
By William H Bridges“Justin Timberlake, 'The 20/20 Experience': Is There a Visual Preference for Whiteness?” Interview with Marc Lamont Hill. HuffPost Live, 27 March 2013.
-
Shakespeare's Edward III
By William ShakespeareThompson , E . in Pollard 1923 . Thompson , J . Shakespeare and the Classics , 1952 . Tillyard , E . Shakespeare ' s History Plays , 1944 . Timberlake , P ...
-
The Problem with Pleasure: Modernism and Its Discontents
By Laura FrostIn The Problem with Pleasure, Frost draws upon a wide variety of materials, linking interwar amusements, such as the talkies, romance novels, the Parisian fragrance Chanel no. 5, and the exotic confection Turkish Delight, to the artistic ...
-
The Alice Books and the Contested Ground of the Natural World
By Laura WhiteSimilarly, he deplored the picturestories of A. B. Frost in his Stuff and Nonsense ... When he'd eaten eighteen, He turned perfectly green, Upon which he ...
-
Fables of Modernity: Literature and Culture in the English Eighteenth Century
By Laura BrownRenew'd by ordure's sympathetic force, As oil'd with magic juices for the course, ... William Frost (1953; reprint, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, ...
-
Questions of Authority: Italian and Australian Travel Narratives of the Long Nineteenth Century
By Laura OlcelliD'Albertis, Luigi. New Guinea: What I Did and What I Saw. 2 vols. London: S. Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1881. First published 1880.
-
A Concordance to Conrad's The Arrow of Gold
By Paul L. Gaston, Todd K. Bender... i ge 3 let S deal ing ge a lings ge at t Joe a f J & at n ce at h-ced ge at hly ue to 3 sec ge is a te debit de cap it a t e u ge c e it ful ge c e i ve ...