The Circulation of Shakespeare Adaptations in Eastern Europe

Abstract

The paper discusses the stage adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet that were circulated in the German Länders and the Habsburg Empire in the late 18th and early 19th century. The various forms of re-writing Shakespeare are linked with processes re-contextualizing the text and are discussed as forms of localizing a transnational Shakespeare. The analysis zooms in on the contexts of performance of the German adaptations in two Transylvanian cities. The paper highlights the cultural and linguistic negotiations performed when further translating the already multilayered rewritings of the Shakespearean text and focuses on a Romanian translation of a German adaptation of Hamlet.

Keywords

• 18th century German adaptations of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet
• first Romanian translation of Hamlet
• Habsburg Empire and Transylvania
• itinerant players