edward bond's lear, arnold wesker's the merchant and howard barker's gert

277 Pages·2017·5.76 MB·English

Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences
Department of English Language and Literature
English Language and Literature
RE-WRITING SHAKESPEARE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:
EDWARD BOND’S LEAR, ARNOLD WESKER’S THE MERCHANT
AND HOWARD BARKER’S GERTRUDE-THE CRY
IN SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Özlem ÖZMEN
Ph.D. Dissertation
Ankara, 2018

RE-WRITING SHAKESPEARE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:
EDWARD BOND’S LEAR, ARNOLD WESKER’S THE MERCHANT AND
HOWARD BARKER’S GERTRUDE-THE CRY IN SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Özlem ÖZMEN

Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences

Department of English Language and Literature

English Language and Literature

Ph.D. Dissertation

Ankara, 2018

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express my gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Hande Seber for her heartfelt
encouragement throughout my study. It would be very difficult to be motivated without
her constructive feedback and scholarly advice. I am also grateful to my thesis
committee members for providing feedback to my work each semester. I owe a special
gratitude to Prof. Dr. A. Deniz Bozer who has provided invaluable guidance throughout
my study. I especially thank the late Assoc. Prof. Dr. Laurence Raw for his inspiring
comments and contribution to my work. I also present my thanks to the members of the
viva committee, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sıla Şenlen Güvenç, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şebnem Kaya
and Assist. Prof. Dr. Sinan Akıllı, for their inspiring questions and motivation.
I am especially indebted to Prof. Dr. Burçin Erol, the Head of the English Language and
Literature Department at Hacettepe University, for her continuous encouragement since
my undergraduate years. She has truly been a role model for me with her discipline and
character. I would also like to thank all my professors in this department for their
contribution to my knowledge in different subject areas.
I am also grateful to Dr. Bridget Escolme from the Department of Drama at Queen
Mary University of London for welcoming me into their department to carry out my
doctoral research between 2015-2016. I must acknowledge the time I spent at QMUL as
the most prolific phase of my Ph.D. Furthermore, I owe a special thanks to Dr. Stephen
Purcell from the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Warwick
University for sparing his time to discuss my work.
I appreciate The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey
(TÜBİTAK)’s financial support with the 2211-A and 2214-A scholarships they granted
to me. I could go and study in the UK for some time thanks to TÜBİTAK’s financial
support.
I owe a debt to my colleagues and my friends who have stood by me. I am thankful to
my dear roommate Cemre Mimoza Bartu not only for her endless encouragement but
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also for the most entertaining time we spent in our department. I present my sincere
gratitude to Kübra Vural Özbey for her support and motivation. I also thank Emine
Akkülah Doğan for sharing my excitement and enthusiasm with her MA thesis. I would
also like to thank Assist. Prof. Dr. Hakan Yılmaz, Assist. Prof. Dr. Gülşah Göçmen,
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ömer Kemal Gültekin, Assist. Prof. Dr. Merve Sarıkaya Şen, Assist.
Prof. Dr. Pınar Taşdelen, Assist. Prof. Dr. İmren Yelmiş, Emrah Atasoy, Zümre Gizem
Yılmaz, Kerim Can Yazgünoğlu, Ulaş Özgün and Seçil Erkoç for their support.
I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents, İsmail Özmen and Fazilet Özmen for all that
they have done for me. Their continuous belief, support and patience have truly
provided the best source of motivation. I am especially thankful to dearest Fırat
Akdoğan for offering professional advice and emotional support generously with his
patience for the last five years. Final thanks goes to my dearest cat Zuzu who has been
the source of love and compassion in my life, and also to my “little girl” Şirin, who
departed us during my Ph.D. journey, for all the love she gave us.
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ABSTRACT
ÖZMEN, Özlem. “Re-writing Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century: Edward Bond’s
Lear, Arnold Wesker’s The Merchant and Howard Barker’s Gertrude-The Cry in Socio-
Historical Context.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Ankara, 2018.

T his study examines re-writings of Shakespeare in British drama, Edward Bond’s Lear
(1971), Arnold Wesker’s The Merchant (1976) and Howard Barker’s Gertrude-The Cry
(2002) in relation to the socio-political, historical and cultural backgrounds of the
periods in which they were generated. These works are considered both as commentary
to the events of their historical background, and as plays that question Shakespeare’s
literary and cultural status. Thus, it is asserted that re-writing has a significant function
in terms of creating alternative ideas to the ways in which critical issues are discussed in
the canonical texts and their political and ideological foundations. In the Introduction,
re-writing’s association with adaptation theory and intertextuality as a postmodern
practice is considered. Additionally, the development of Shakespearean re-writing, its
reception, and its functions are discussed. Within the scope of these ideas, it is
concluded that Shakespeare’s works are questioned, and their ideological aspects are
criticised through reworkings. In the first chapter, Edward Bond’s Lear is examined as a
Marxist-Socialist appropriation written against Shakespeare’s uncritical attitude to
issues like class inequality and violence in King Lear (1606). Considering the problems
of the 1970s’ Britain such as unequal class structure, student and worker’s riots,
inefficiency of leftist politicians, violence triggered by Stalinism and the Vietnam War,
it is discussed that Bond’s appropriation is not only a Shakespeare re-writing but also a
play that sheds light on the concerns of its period. In the second chapter, Arnold
Wesker’s The Merchant is analysed in terms of identity politics as the play criticises
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (1605) for its antisemitic discourse. Accordingly,
Wesker’s re-writing, as a play produced in the post-Holocaust context, is correlated with
some events in its historical background such as Arab-Israeli conflict, Six Day War and
Yom Kippur War. In the third chapter, Howard Barker’s Gertrude-The Cry is discussed
as a response to the representation of the woman figure in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600)
in terms of sexual and gender politics. Considering the issues of the play such as
individual will and sexual freedom in relation to the regulations of New Labour as the