2 (Laurence Raw, Laurence Raw) The Silk Road of Adaptation

The Silk Road of Adaptation
The Silk Road of Adaptation:

Transformations across Disciplines and Cultures
Edited by
Laurence Raw
The Silk Road of Adaptation: Transformations across Disciplines and Cultures
Edited by Laurence Raw
This book first published 2013
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2013 by Laurence Raw and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-4975-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4975-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ................................................................................... viii
Chapter One ................................................................................................ 1

Introduction: Traveling the Silk Road of Adaptation
Laurence Raw
Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 14

Where are We and are We There Yet?
Imelda Whelehan
Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 26

Cross-Cultural Adaptation by Medieval Travelers along the Silk Road:
Concepts of Understanding
Victoria Bledsloe
Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 35

Adaptation or Appropriation: Resistance to Constitutional Monarchy
in the National Anthems of the Ottoman Empire
Sinan Akilli
Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 49

The Adaptation of the Self: Byron’s Oriental Self-Fashioning
Himmet Umunç
Chapter Six ............................................................................................... 57

Adapting the East into Western Paradigms:
Robert Irwin’s Arabian Nightmare
Defne Ersin Tutan
Chapter Seven........................................................................................... 64
Adaptation or Something Like It: Karel Reisz’s The Gambler (1974)
Joyce Goggin
Chapter Eight ............................................................................................ 78

The Eastwood Agenda in the Adaptation
of White Hunter, Black Heart (1990)
Charles Hamilton
vi Table of Contents
Chapter Nine............................................................................................. 88
Time, Space, and Culture in Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick
Selga Goldmane
Chapter Ten .............................................................................................. 98

The Hours (2002): An Unfaithful Adaptation
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Chapter Eleven ....................................................................................... 103

Adaptation or Assimilation:
Orientation Issues in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine
Faruk Kalay and %OHQW7DQUÕWDQÕU
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 110

Three Hamlets, Two Gentlemen and One Time to Love:
Shakespeare on the Chinese Screen
Hui Wu
Chapter Thirteen ..................................................................................... 122

Or Image of that Horror:
The Apocalyptic Visions of Peter Brook and Akira Kurosawa
Peter E. S. Babiak
Chapter Fourteen .................................................................................... 132

Brazilian Translations and Adaptations of Charles and Mary Lamb’s
Tales from Shakespeare (1807)
Marilise R. Bertin
Chapter Fifteen ....................................................................................... 140

Translation Challenges and their Implications in Advertising Adaptation
and Multicultural Marketing
Hugo Vandal-Sirois
Chapter Sixteen ...................................................................................... 152

Advertising: The Intercultural Dialogue’s Possibilities
Tânia Hoff and João Anzanello Carrascoza
Chapter Seventeen .................................................................................. 160

Bringing the Mid-West to the Middle East:
An Analysis of a Harlequin Romance in English and Turkish
Heather Schell
The Silk Road of Adaptation vii
Chapter Eighteen .................................................................................... 172

The Balkanization of English Language and Literature:
Challenges and Experiences of Cross-Cultural Academic Adaptation
Mustafa Bal
Chapter Nineteen .................................................................................... 180

Adapting Drama in the Turkish Foreign Language Classroom
Seçil Horasan
Chapter Twenty....................................................................................... 189

Cultural Issues in Language Teaching
Charlotte McPherson
Chapter Twenty-One............................................................................... 201

The Devil’s in the Detail:
The Hidden Horror of F. W. Murnau’s Faust (1926)
Liz Jones
List of Contributors ................................................................................ 213
Index ....................................................................................................... 218

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The entire conference could not have taken place without the input of
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øVWDQEXO ZKR QRW RQO\ KHOSHG WR RUJDQL]H WKH PDJQLILFHQW YHQXH EXW
offered her usual input and enthusiasm to ensure the success of the event.
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all the manifold duties involved in organizing the event, including
transport, accommodation, room organization and travel. We could not
have had such a success without her. I’d like to thank the Association of
Adaptation Studies for giving us the chance to organize the event in the
first place, notably Jeremy Strong. Deborah Cartmell and Imelda
Whelehan were two of the plenary speakers, as welO DV 6DYDú$UVODQ RI
%DKoHúHKLU8QLYHUVLW\LQøVWDQEXOZKRRIIHUHGDFKDOOHQJLQJSLHFHRQWKH
role of Turkish cinema in the modern age. Tim Corrigan and Marcia
Ferguson offered moral support as well as asking just the right questions at
the right time. Tony Gurr offered valuable perspectives on teaching
DGDSWDWLRQVDEO\VXSSRUWHGE\ùDKLND$UÕNDQDQGùHEQHP'HPLUFL James
Mavor of Edinburgh Napier University offered a valuable workshop on
screenwriting. 1D]PL $÷ÕO RI .Ro 8QLYHUVLW\ SURYLGHG D ZRQGHUIXO
poetry-reading as a last-minute substitute. I’d also like to thank Carol
Koulikourdi, Amanda Millar and Emily Surrey of Cambridge Scholars
Publishing for their continual support of this project.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION:
TRAVELING THE SILK ROAD OF ADAPTATION
LAURENCE RAW
The Silk Road is an historical network of interlinking trade routes that

connected South Asia with Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as parts
of East Asia. Routes extended through Syria, the Republic of Turkey, Iran,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and China. Trade on the Silk Road
was a significant factor in the development of China, the Indian
subcontintent, Iran/Persia and Europe. Though silk was the principal
commodity, many other goods were exchanged, while various
technologies, religions and philosophies also traveled along the routes.
One example was the encounter between Chinese and Xiongnu nomads.
The Xiongnu adopted Chinese agricultural methods, clothing and lifestyle,
while the Chinese converted to the Xiongnu way of life as a means of
avoiding punishment from their superiors.
Such cross-cultural exchanges invariably involved adaptation – of
styles, clothing, and modes of behavior – which helps to explain why the
metaphor of “the Silk Road” continues to exert considerable sway in
different cultures. Former American Secretary of State Hillary Roddam
Clinton embraced a vision of “the new Silk Road” in the Near and Far
East, based on the ideas of cooperation and collaboration in the areas of
trade, research and intellectual development. Her Deputy Assistant
Secretary Geoffrey Pyatt remarked in a speech given on 9 July 2012 that
the strategy would help reconnect countries “that had been torn apart by
decades of war and rivalry” – for example the United States, India, Japan
and Afghanistan. Cooperation could be achieved through increased trade
flow and dialogue between opinion-formers at all levels, whether
industrial, diplomatic, or educational. This was no easy task: “years of
ambivalence about the merits of cooperation, and even geography will
need to be overcome.” The term “geography” is problematic: Pyatt
understood that it was often used as an excuse to prevent rather than
2 Chapter One
promote dialogue between representatives of different countries. Hence it

was necessary to construct an “open and integrated” framework for
dialogue so that “the progress we have all worked hard to achieve is
preserved and has the momentum to continue” (Pyatt, “Delivering.”)
Robert O. Blake jr., the Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of South and
Central Affairs in the State Department, remarked in another speech dated
13 March 2013 that the “New Silk Road” strategy depended to a large
extent on United States and Turkish involvement: the Republic could not
only provide the industrial and financial impetus to ensure the success of
various schemes, but it could encourage trade liberalization, permitting the
flow of goods, services, people and ideas throughout the region. Note the
choice of words here: Blake believes that trade-links can be better
established through cross-cultural understanding, as entrepreneurs and
their customers learn to adapt themselves and the products they deal with.
Greater cooperation helps people address “important issues related to
human rights, the rule of law, and corruption” and thereby improve “the
region’s long-term stability and security” (Blake, “The New Silk Road.”)
In Blake’s formulation, the need to adapt is essential to the creation of a
better world in which the purpose of the Silk Road metaphor – the need to
exchange ideas as well as commodities – can be rediscovered.
Published in New York, the literary journal Words without Borders
adopts a similar purpose; to promote greater communication between
creative artists of different culture by publishing new writing both in
translation and in its original language. Joshua Mandelbaum, managing
editor of the journal, believes that this strategy can help readers “examine
themselves,” while encouraging analysis “of ‘the other’ in relation to the
self.” The subjects of previous editions have included African women,
Brazil, Black Markets, Cities of Asylum and Venezuela (Mandelbaum).
While the Silk Road metaphor does not appear in the journal’s title, its
principal aim consists in forging a better world by showing how writers
have reinterpreted it according to their own cultural preconceptions, for
better or for worse. Published out of the University of Oregon, the Silk
Road Review provides a forum for a variety of material – fiction, poetry,
reportage, travel documents – that captures “a vivid point of exchange and
space.” The term “interaction” is significant: the journal tries to publish
“crucial, defining and relevant” work designed to appeal to as
cosmopolitan a readership as possible. The points of contact are not only
cross-cultural but cross-disciplinary, giving writers of all specialisms the
chance to participate in a literary and creative forum” (Postma).
What relevance does the Silk Road metaphor have for the future of
adaptation studies? Perhaps most significantly, it provides the opportunity
Introduction: Traveling the Silk Road of Adaptation 3
for a revaluation of the term “adaptation,” that not only refers to textual
transformations (literature to film, film to fanflic, and so on), but also
describes a process of coming to terms with new material and new
phenomena. Through dialogue members of different trading nations, as
well as scholars, forge new partnerships through adaptation, just like the
Chinese and Xiongnu peoples. By providing a variety of material from a
variety of backgrounds, journals like Words without Borders and the Silk
Road Review encourage their readers to perform similar transformative
processes. More importantly the Silk Road metaphor promotes the idea of
adaptation as a continuous process in which individuals continually have
to adjust themselves to new ideas and new material. Applying that idea to
adaptation studies (understood as the process of transforming one text into
another) means that we not only have to look at the ways in which texts
have been transformed, but the ways in which readers, audiences, and
critics have responded to them at different points in time and space.
Comparing and contrasting such reactions rehearses a process similar to
those involved in the “New Silk Road” initiative: the only way people can
move forward is to make sense of each other’s reactions. Thirdly, it is
clear that adaptation is a psychological process: only by coming to terms
with other people and other cultures can individuals address issues of
human rights, or “examine themselves” and their existing beliefs. Finally
adaptation should be approached as a transmedial as well as a
transdisciplinary act, assuming equal significance in the political and
diplomatic as well as the literary spheres.
Such notions are very different from those put forward by recent
theorists of adaptation studies. Anne-Marie Scholz’s recent From Fidelity
to History acknowledges the role of active viewers in film adaptations – of
James and Austen in particular – who “construct […] for themselves an
understanding of the context that specific date [of release of an adaptation]
implies; it will be informed by more or less knowledge about the time
period based upon personal experience […] or any number of other
possibilities” (13). However this formulation does not allow for difference;
each viewer might respond to an adaptation in an idiosyncratic manner.
Analyzing their responses tells a lot about the cultures and customs that
shape them. The issue here is one of perspective: looking at film
adaptations using the Silk Road metaphor requires us to start with
individual viewpoints and look at the ways in which viewpoints have
influenced texts (literary, cinematic, or otherwise). Scholz starts with texts
and moves outwards to consider ways in which “the viewer” – viewed as a
generalized entity – responds to them.
4 Chapter One
Judith Buchanan’s edited collection The Writer on Film looks at the

ways in which literary authors have been reconstructed in the cinema as a
way for cinema to reflect on its own identity and processes, especially vis-
à-vis more established means of artistic communication such as the book.
The representation of authors on film offers vital evidence of the authors’
reputation in (western) cultures by rewriting “the evolving cultural
monuments we collectively erect, and variously rewhittle, to the writers
whose stories we want to tell and retell” (Buchanan 23). Buchanan’s
observation neglects the audience’s active presence in the cinematic event
as authors; in a film like John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love (1998), for
instance, Tom Stoppard’s reconstruction of the Bard can be (re)
constructed according to different cultural monuments, depending on the
viewers’ socio-cultural backgrounds. By comparing these monuments we
can learn a lot about how adaptations are marketed (and more
significantly) consumed. Buchanan concludes that cinema’s transnational
gaze towards the literary author “had been torn between envy and
condescension, between an impulse to idealize and the temptation to
debunk” (23). Such binaries might not assume too much significance in
contexts where the subjects of literary films might not be so well-known
(for example, in nonwestern popular cultures).
Analyzing a cinematic representation of an author using the Silk Road
metaphor requires us to make more nuanced conclusions, helping us to
understand how such representations vary according to time, space,
geography and – most importantly – purpose. The references to the Bard
in a Turkish film like .RPVHU ùHNVSLU [Commissar Shakespeare] (2001)
fulfill very different functions from those in Shakespeare in Love: director
Sinan Çetin – a veteran of the Turkish \HúLOoDP industry – treats
Shakespeare as a general symbol of “western” cultures, allowing him to
make a serio-comic examination of the ways in which the police are
perceived in the contemporary Republic of Turkey.
The Silk Road metaphor allows us to view adaptation as a fundamental
process of human understanding. Great authors such as Shakespeare or
Henry James function simultaneously as objects transformed by
perpetually shifting critical and political interventions, as well as by the
subjects performing the adaptations. Their works function as the means by
which new conceptualizations can be produced, or provide an opportunity
for individuals to explore the implications and potential of new critical
and/or social constructions. This is an interesting approach insofar as it
restores the centrality of “the author” to the act of adaptation. However
this does not represent a return to the old New Critical view of the author
as a disembodied product of textuality, or the bearer of symbolic capital in
the literary or societal spheres (i.e. treating James or Shakespeare as so-

called “canonical” authors). Rather the author functions as a means by
which individuals can reflect on their own experiences or cultural
concerns, and hence become authors of their own adaptations. They
experience the same acts of imaginative transformation that authors such
as James or Shakespeare underwent while creating their works. Everyone
is treated as an “author;” there is no privileged status granted to one person
over another.
Shelley Cobb argues that reception is the place where authorial
authority and authorial identity is made, sustained and fought for. It is not
just academic reception that provides a site for this struggle: popular film
criticism plays an important role, as do press reviews, interviews and
advertising. Cobb further suggests that in terms of film adaptations, the
adapter’s emotional identity competes for authority with that of the source-
text’s author, thereby proving the truth of Fredric Jameson’s argument that
modern artists seek each other’s death in the sense that they brook no other
gods besides themselves (118). These kind of struggles for authority
assume importance in cultures where literary texts are prioritized over
other types of text, telling us a lot about how different socio-economic
groups construct and reconstruct “cultural monuments” for ideological
and/or self-interested purposes. The editors of a recent anthology on Henry
James understand this point well, as they suggest how the Master’s work
can be used to explore “a web of social, cultural, aesthetic, and
philosophic discourses” across cultures. Such discourses are not only
critiqued in James’s novels, but the novels can be used as a means by
which readers can conduct their own critiques of such discourses (Biasio,
Despotopoulou and Izzo 2).
The significance of this process of adaptation was understood several
years ago by the translator Patrice Pavis, as it provided a means for
“acknowledging cultures, individualities, minorities, sub-cultures,
pressure-groups, and thus for refining socio-cultural methods of measuring
the extent and effects of culture[s] [….] whose identity, determination and
precise place within infra- and superstructure we no longer know” (42).
Through adaptation we can find out more about the cultures we inhabit
and the role that literary texts – as well as other texts – play in helping us
towards this process of self-discovery. As long ago as the mid-Seventies
the clinical psychologist Hans Selye observed that the act of adaptation
consisted of a series of strategies, both physical and mental, whereby
individuals learn to do things or reach to things better as time goes by:
The degree of adaptation you can acquire varies from case to case, but
there are very few things in life which you cannot learn to do [….] When
6 Chapter One
we are first confronted with a complex mathematical problem, we attempt

to solve it in different ways [….] This process might be quite exhausting,
but […] eventually we learn always to use the simplest formula […] with a
minimum of effort (160-1).
Watching a film adaptation or reading a literary text involves the

same strategies as when we read a James novel: we try to solve the
complexities of language and thought, but once we have adapted
ourselves to the style, we can construct our own interpretations.
Adaptation is an important means by which individuals come to
deal with specific social and personal problems. The psychologist
9DPÕN'9RONDQLQWHUYLHZHGVHYHUDO7XUNLVK&\SULRWVLQWKHZDNHRI
the Cyprus conflict during the mid-Seventies. Many of them had been
removed from their family homes and forcibly resettled in the Turkish
sector. They had to learn to adapt to the diasporic experience,
something that proved especially difficult on account of elements
“hidden under the skin, as it were [….] I learned […] about a general
belief that the waters of the Cyprus beaches were contaminated by
some organism that caused itching [….] a sign of repressed anxiety,
repressed rage, or repressed sexual excitement” (138-9). The condition
only subsided when Volkan’s subjects discovered their own ways of
dealing with their anxieties.
The only way that countries along the Silk Road could learn to
cooperate with one another was through similar adaptive strategies.
0RVXW %R]NÕU WKH Head of the Board of Trustees at the International
Black Sea University in Tbilisi, remarked in 2003 that this was the
only means by which “people may realize and tolerate different views
and thoughts [….] The main reason for current conflicts is that people
do not know each other very well” (14). Individuals should be brought
together around the same table “so that they can get to know each other
better and strengthen their mutual relations.” Ultimately the spirit of
the Great Silk Road can be recreated, producing “wealth, experience
and cultural richness as a result of positive interactions” (14).
The Silk Road metaphor is both transdisciplinary and transnational,
making little formal distinction between the processes of reading and
interpreting a novel, watching and consuming a film adaptation, and
forging a community of purpose amongst representatives of different
cultures. All of these strategies require us to make sense of new
experiences and hence develop our personalities. This lies at the heart
of all creative development, as the educational theorist W. D. Wall
remarked in 1975: “True creativeness involves qualities of mind […]
[as well as] exposure to a rich and varied experience which is both
cognitively and emotionally stimulating, and which provides the

‘compost’ from which to recombine experience [and adapt to it] in new
ways” (327-8).
It was this desire to foster an emotionally stimulating
transdisciplinary environment that informed the way we planned the
2011 Association of Adaptation Studies conference, where most of the
chapters in this anthology were originally presented. The event took
place at the Anadolu Külübü >$QDWROLDQ&OXE@RQ%\NDGDRQHRIWKH
3ULQFH¶V ,VODQGV RII WKH FRDVW RI øVWDQEXO Founded in 1928, the club
represented an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a London
gentleman’s club, complete with restaurant, smoking and billiard
rooms, and overnight accommodation. Even today the club is usually
restricted to members, who pay high subscriptions for enjoying its
facilities, so securing it as a conference venue represented a notable
coup. The venue seemed ideal for a conference entitled “The Silk Road
of Adaptation” insofar as the event’s entire organization depended on a
delicate fusion of cultures. Elderly club members sat in their armchairs
reading their newspapers in rooms festooned with Ottoman fixtures
and fittings, while conference delegates from all over Europe,
Australasia, Asia and the Americas hurried from room to room to listen
to or present their papers. I don’t want to push this parallel too far, but
it seems as if the club’s managers had provided an effective means to
synthesize “different views and thoughts´ WR LQYRNH %R]NÕU¶V SKUDVH
once more.
In keeping with the Silk Road metaphor, the conference tried to be
as transdisicplinary as possible by including papers on film and theater,
Turkish history and politics, constructivist educational theory, teaching
foreign languages and literatures, and translation studies. The papers
included in this anthology offers a representative selection of material
presented. Imelda Whelehan’s “Where Are We and Are We There Yet?”
provides a suggestive introduction. She surveys recent theoretical
trends in adaptation studies, taking due account of the movements
towards transdisciplinarity. She believes with some justification that
adaptation studies remains enmeshed in yesterday’s theoretical battles,
especially in its enduring obsession with “fidelity” (fidelity to what, we
might ask?) Whelehan believes that the discipline is branching out into
different areas; the fact that it lacks a coherent theoretical core might
be one of its strengths, as different cultures and different disciplines
approach it in a variety of ways, extending far beyond the literature/
film/ media paradigm.
8 Chapter One
The next three pieces prove the truth of Whelehan’s observation

about the diversity of work going on in adaptation studies. Victoria
Bledsloe looks at the history of the Silk Road as a site of cultural and
commercial negotiation. This provides a suggestive framework for
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in which national anthems were adopted and subsequently discarded
during the last century and a half of the Ottoman Empire. The anthems
encouraged people to believe in visions of national unity; to adapt
themselves and show loyalty to the ruling hegemony. The fact that
several tunes were chosen suggests that this policy failed, as the rulers
could not – or more likely would not – acknowledge the importance of
cultural difference among their subjects. This lack of success contrasts
with the ,VWLNODO 0DUúÕ, the anthem embraced during the Republican
period from 1923 onwards that continues to be used today.
Himmet Umunç and Defne Ersin Tutan look at different
constructions of orientalist adaptation. Umunç’s essay on Lord Byron
discusses how the poet consciously adopted an oriental mode of dress
in an attempt to make himself appear less “English,” both to himself
and those around him. In the end he became a Kiplingesque figure, one
who never lost his western education, but nonetheless made a
conscious effort to embrace the Other. Ersin Tutan discusses Robert
Irwin’s 1983 novel Arabian Nightmare, where the author makes a
valiant attempt to adapt the west/east binary through historiographic
metafiction, but only succeeds in reinforcing it. Unlike Byron, Irwin
cannot shed himself of his belief in western superiority.
The next five chapters all look at the means by which different film
directors have adapted a variety of source-texts. Joyce Goggin surveys
Karel Reisz’s version of Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler (1974), in which
the story has been transformed into a quasi-morality piece of a
professor of literatue (James Caan) being sucked into the world of late
capitalism represented by the gambling table. In his search for the
“real” hard-core gold rush, he is seduced by the aesthetics of sensation.
Whereas Lord Byron retained the freedom to adapt himself to new
ways of life, Caan’s professor finds himself deprived of the power of
self-determination. Capitalism can destroy the individual, which makes
the need for understanding and negotiation in any form of cultural
exchange all the more significant as a means of resisting its apparently
unstoppable force.
Charles Hamilton shows how Peter Viertel’s account of working
with John Huston on The African Queen (1951) was transformed into a
Clint Eastwood vehicle, in which the protagonist (a thinly disguised
Huston-figure) tried to deal with his inner demons as he completed the

film. Unable either to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings or the crew
working with him, Wilson (the fictionalized Huston) cannot come to
terms with himself. The film offers an object lesson in the importance
of group negotiation. Two pieces written by Selga Goldmane and Ela
øSHN*QG]DQG5DKLPHdRND\DGGUHVVVRPHRIWKHLVVXHVUHIHUUHGWR
earlier on in this introduction: Goldmane looks at the ways in which
Stanley Kubrick stamped his cinematic imprimatur on Stephen King’s
The Shining ZKLOH *QG] DQG dRND\ IRFXV RQ KRw Virginia Woolf
has been represented in Stephen Daldry’s The Hours. The latter piece
is exceptionally interesting as the authors show how Woolf’s life and
work provide an object lesson for viewers to trust in their own
judgment, and thereby adapt themselves for the better. Faruk Kalay and
%OHQW 7DQUÕWDQÕU LGHQWLI\ D VLPLODUO\ RSWLPLVWLF PHVVDJH LQ WKHLU
analysis of Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine, whose protagonists
learns how to come to terms with living in an alien culture.
The next three pieces discuss how Shakespeare has been adapted in
different socio-cultural contexts. Wu Hui discusses Chinese versions of
Hamlet that perpetually negotiate the distinctions between known and
unknown, repetition and creation, fidelity and innovation. While
recognizing Shakespeare’s global reputation, the directors try to
rewrite his texts to make comments on contemporary Chinese social
and cultural politics. Each film creates its own particular Silk Road, a
balance of different interests, both artistic and political. The same
phenomenon can be discerned in Peter Brook’s and Akira Kurosawa’s
versions of King Lear. Peter E. S. Babiak argues that both films present
apocalyptic visions of the world in highly different ways. Analyzing
both texts tells us a lot about how cultures represent apparently
familiar ideas. Marilise R. Bertin surveys the history of Brazilian
translations of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare,
showing how politics on a national as well as a global level shaped the
texts’ adaptation and reception. Combining politics, textual analysis
and reception theory, Bertin draws attention to the transdisciplinarity of
adaptation studies.
The next three pieces extend that transdisciplinary framework.
Hugo Vandal-Sirois, Tânia Hoff and João Anzanello Carrascoza all
look at adaptation in advertising. In an interesting counterpoint to
Goggin’s piece, they show how capitalism depends for its continued
success on recognition of difference. It has to adapt itself to different
social, cultural and linguistic contexts – something that influenced all
transactions conducted along the Silk Road in the past. Heather
10 Chapter One
Schell’s fascinating analysis of how Harlequin romances are reworked

in the Turkish context illustrates one of the complications of this point:
while these texts must necessarily be reworked for their new audience,
such a necessity is not acknowledged by the publishers. This conflict
renders the process of adaptation invisible, Schell suggests, and
therefore frees the Harlequin translators to make significant
adaptations to the stories.
Turning to issues of adaptation in education, the next three pieces
offer contrasting accounts of how western-produced texts have been
adapted in nonwestern classrooms. A graduate of a Turkish Department
of English Literature, Mustafa Bal recalls how a literature curriculum
was introduced in Sarajevo in the wake of the Bosnian civil war. He
does not discuss the strategy in terms of its “success” or “failure,” but
rather looks at the ways in which educators and learners used the
experience to adapt themselves and their views of western cultures, as
well as trying to forge a community of purpose. Seçil Horasan writes
about a similar experience of working with learners of English at a
private university in Ankara; through drama she helped them to deal
with their basic fears of making mistakes in English, and hence
increased their self-confidence. This type of pedagogy contributed
greatly to their creative development through adaptation. Drawing on
her experience as a language educator in several contexts, Charlotte
McPherson stresses the link between the spirit of cross-cultural
exchange inherent in the Silk Road, and effective language and/or
culture learning. Everyone in the learning event – educators and
learners alike – should cultivate respect for differences, some of which
can be subtler than others. Effective learning depends on negotiating
these differences, if not necessarily overcoming them.
The collection ends with a salutary tale, proving that some cross-
cultural and/or cross-disciplinary initiatives do not have successful
outcomes. Liz Jones looks at F. W. Murnau’s 1926 version of Faust,
whose premiere attracted volleys of criticism from filmgoers and
reviewers alike. Despite his reputation, Murnau had produced a piece
that failed to fulfill what she describes as the German public’s “generic
expectations.” Negotiation proved impossible; the film flopped; and
Murnau’s reputation as an auteur suffered as a result. However time
has been kind to Faust; critics now recognize it as a classic
reconstruction of Goethe’s source-text incorporating several intertexts.
The film’s checkered career tells us something about the Silk Road
metaphor: if one cross-cultural transaction fails, then it’s important to
set it aside and move on to another. This is what adaptation involves;
the ability to learn from failure and to use it as a basis for further
experiment.
While this collection is undoubtedly eclectic in terms of subject-
matter, it nonetheless proves how adaptation assumes equal
significance across a variety of disciplines and/or socio-cultural
contexts. Hopefully it will encourage readers to travel along their own
Silk Roads, whether intellectual or otherwise, in pursuit of new
exchanges.
12 Chapter One
Works Cited
Blake, Robert O. jr. “The New Silk Road and Regional Economic
Integration.” US Department of State, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 16 Jun.
2013.
%R]NÕU 0HVXW “Opening Address.” 2nd International Black Sea
Symposium: BSEC Studies, 6-7 May 2005, Tbilisi, Georgia. Tbilisi:
Georgian Ministry of Economy, Georgian Academy of Sciences,
International Black Sea University, 2005. 14. Print.
Buchanan, Judith. “Introduction.” The Writer on Film: Screening Literary
Authorship. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 3-
35. Print.
Cobb, Shelley. “Film Authorship and Adaptation.” A Companion to
Literature, Film and Adaptation. Ed. Deborah Cartmell. Malden, VA,
and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012. 105-22. Print.
De Biasio, Anna, Anna Despotopoulou, and Donatella Izzo. “Introduction:
Transformations.” Transforming Henry James. Eds. De Biasio,
Despotopoulou, and Izzo. 7-10. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, 2013. Print.
Faust – Eine Deutsche Volkssage [Faust: A German Folk-Tale]. Dir. F. W.
Murnau. 3HUI*|VWD(NPDQ(mil Jannings. UFA, 1926. Film.
The Gambler. Dir. Karel Reisz. Perf. James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Lauren
Hutton. Paramount Pictures, 1974. Film.
The Hours. Dir. Stephen Daldry. Perf. Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman,
Julianne Moore. Paramount Pictures/ Miramax Films, 2002. Film.
Irwin, Robert. Arabian Nightmare. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983.
Print.
King Lear. Dir. Peter Brook. Perf. Paul Scofield, Irene Worth. Filmways,
Inc., 1971. Film.
.RPVHUùHNVSLU [Commissar Shakespeare]. Dir. Sinan Çetin. Perf. Vahdet
dDNDU 2NDQ %D\OJHQ 0HVXW &H\ODQ Plato Film Production, 2001.
Film.
Mandelbaum, Joshua. E-mail to the author, 13 Jun. 2013.
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1989. Print.
Pavis, Patrice. “Problems of Translation for the Stage.” Trans. Loren
Kruger. The Play out of Context: Transferring Plays from Culture to
Culture. Eds. Hanna Scolnicov and Peter Holland. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1989. 25-45. Print.
Postma, Kathlene. E-mail to the author, 8 Jun. 2013.
Pyatt, Geoffrey. “Delivering on the New Silk Road.” US Department of
State, 9 Jul. 2012. Web. 16 Jun. 2013.
Ran. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Perf. Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao. Greenwich
Film Productions/ Herald Ace, 1985. DVD.
Scholz, Anne-Marie. From Fidelity to History: Film Adaptation as
Cultural Events in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Berghahn Books,
2013. Print.
Selye, Hans. The Stress of Life. Rev. ed. 1976. New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Co., 1978. Print.
The Shining. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall,
Barry Nelson. Warner Bros., 1980. Film.
9RONDQ9DPÕN' Cyprus: War and Adaptation. A Psychoanalytic History
of Two Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Charlottesville:: UP. of Virginia,
1979. Print.
Wall, W. D. Constructive Education for Children. London: George G.
Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1975. Print.
White Hunter, Black Heart. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Clint Eastwood, Jeff
Fahey, Alun Armstrong. Warner Bros. 1990. DVD.
CHAPTER TWO
WHERE ARE WE AND ARE WE THERE YET?
IMELDA WHELEHAN
In a recent volume on adaptation, the editors draw attention to “the

persistent recourse in the literature to a spatial discourse of ‘turning-
points’” (Hopton et. al.. xv). To support this view they mention in
particular both Thomas Leitch’s influential review article, “Adaptation
Studies at a Crossroads”(2008), which focuses on key publications on the
subject, and Eckart Voigts-Virchow’s “Metadaptation: Adaptation and
Intermediality – Cock and Bull” (2009), that examine the critical gulf
between what is called adaptation studies and what is often termed studies
in intermediality. This chapter follows these threads and begins by
focusing upon spatial metaphors, as well as metaphors of movement,
constraint and liberation, to tease out current tensions and possibilities in
the field of adaptation studies. I shall continue by asking why so many
adaptation critics describe themselves as trapped in current discourses of
adaptation studies, in order to establish what it is they want to be liberated
from. I shall explore the possibility of consensus in adaptation theory and
consider what studies in intermediality might offer instead. I hope to show
that there is a thread of anxiety that runs through most criticism about
what adaptation studies is or could be, which suggests core concerns about
disciplinarity, direction and possible evolution. Whether such concerns are
symptoms of malaise or, perversely, evidence of the field’s rude health is a
key topic of this piece.
The rest of the discussion is intended to further interrogate this sense of
lack of direction or confusion about the correct path for the adaptation
critic to take. Significantly, it seems to be a good time to reflect on why
there is a new focus on “correct” approaches to study, as well as why this
debate is framed in terms of locatedness and space. From this point of
view, Leitch’s essay is a good place to start. Leitch’s review, appearing in
the first issue of the journal Adaptation, is intended to initiate the question:
“where now in adaptation studies?” Given that 2008 saw the publication of
two new journals devoted to this field of study, the image of the crossroads
Where are We and are We There Yet? 15
seemed a pertinent and useful one: one pauses at a crossroads, before

determining which direction to take; and of course figuratively speaking,
to be at a crossroads is to be at a moment of decision-making. Eckart
Voigts-Virchow, in his article a year later, sees adaptation studies as more
of a cul-de-sac, or perhaps a one-way street, unable to exploit the
intersections that he sees as being available with intermediality and other
theoretical positions. This, as he points out, is not just a question of
avoidance, but one of changing national and regional theoretical habits,
and an issue related to the location of academic disciplines and discursive
norms within certain cultural contexts. His acknowledgement of the
Anglophone dimension of adaptation studies and the European focus on
intermediality reminds us that the gap between the two is not just
perceived as philosophical or epistemological, but is crucially about
different educational traditions organized in different cultures which itself
determines the nature of communication: “The story I would like to tell is
a similar tale of incompatible languages emerging in the two rival pubs
‘Adaptation’ and ‘Intermediality’” (138). He extends this analogy further
by posing them as businesses of sorts with their own figureheads: “The
intermediality pub is a franchise of Julia Kristeva’s” (138), reminds us that
dominant voices shape a discipline and determine the direction and focus
of critical investigation to a degree. The image of rival pubs also suggests
a certain arbitrariness: maybe we go to one pub rather than another
because it is nearer, or because our friends drink there; but one day we
may take a different turning and find ourselves sitting in a pub under an
unfamiliar sign, drinking a different brand of beer and nervously observing
the locals. Voigts-Virchow importantly raises the issue of how differing
intellectual traditions have fostered different approaches, but with
numerous points of crossover and similarities that are sometimes obscured
by their difference in location and differences in constructions of language.
Studies in intermediality have the theoretical rigor and maturity, a
sense of process and method; and while adaptation studies draws from
numerous theoretical perspectives there is a niggling sense of lack at its
heart. For some, adaptation studies suffers from a certain critical naivété,
and as it gains momentum and breadth from scholars located in several
disciplines, this sense of a lack of a theoretical core, an untheoretical
responsiveness to texts is felt more keenly. In a recent collection devoted
to adaptation, but originating largely from the intermediality side of the
camp, Lucia Krämer asserts: “in the present situation it would not seem
too unreasonable to characterise adaptation scholars as ultimately just
another fan group with a specialist discourse” (169). She implies that
adaptation critics remain intensely subjective and try rather too hard to
16 Chapter Two
distinguish themselves from professional film critics by eschewing any

discussion of fidelity. Some years earlier Sarah Cardwell wrote of the need
to “break from established interpretive and evaluative paradigms.” (1),
arguing that adaptation studies was locked into a comparative novel-film
approach that was unable to fully evaluate the cultural and aesthetic
impact of the adaptation, but also implying that the analytical strategies,
borrowed largely from literary critical approaches, were not fit for
purpose. As well as adaptation studies being conceived as perhaps unequal
to the task it sets itself because of its lack of theoretical frameworks, it is
also a body of work whose enduring precepts (usually an assertion of what
adaptation is not rather that what it is – the fallacies route) have already
become a cage.
Leitch’s conception of the provenance of adaptation studies as
originating from the “backwaters of the academy” (63) suggests an
enduring taint cast by such humble beginnings, despite the dynamism
indicated by recent adaptation criticism. Leitch reflects on Christine
Geraghty’s consideration of the discourses which circulate adaptation as
ghostly presences leaving their imprints (Geraghty, 195), and declares that
adaptation studies itself is ‘haunted by concepts and premises it has
repudiated in principle but continued to rely on in practice” (63). It is
haunted by tensions between literary and film studies, George Bluestone,
fidelity and Wagner’s three degrees of adaptation, to name just a few of the
ghosts one can immediately identify. More recently what haunts adaptation
studies is a desire for some critical tools agreed upon and shared; and this
sense of a remaining and significant absence in our practices prompts a
sense of loss of direction and the desire for a proper “map” of the field.
So far I have reflected on images of adaptation studies as haunted by
past traumas and actually imprisoned in a cage of its own making. Leitch
imagines Christine Geraghty, Julie Sanders and Linda Hutcheon as
escapees from the “prison-house of adaptation studies” (76) tunneling out
to meet their confrères from intermediality halfway. This notion prompted
me to revisit my and Deborah Cartmell’s perhaps rather complacent
assumption that “the area is beginning to settle down under a banner
which can contain multitudes, and denies either ‘literature’ or ‘film’
unwelcome primacy” (1). When we wrote this it seemed to us that the time
for all-encompassing last words on adaptation studies had passed, and that
it had become a meeting point for scholars in a multitude of disciplines
and sub-specialisms, whose specialist knowledge lent ever broader variety
to the approaches to be taken to the adaptation process, more than one
individual could ever hope to master in a single scholarly work. For us,
adaptation is the crossroads.
The editors of the recent volume I mentioned at the start of this

chapter, a volume entitled Pockets of Change, respond directly to both
Leitch and Voigts-Virchow and argue that:
we need more pubs, and if we are to move between them, then we want
more tunnels, in all directions. We would rather not pause at a crossroads,
where the next step entails either continuing on the same trajectory, going
back over old ground, or making a sharp, perpendicular turn. We invoke
“pockets” as an alternative space of change, exchange, transition, and
transposition. A pocket may be an enclosed or isolated space; its contents
may be obscure or even invisible, may require tunneling blind. But a
pocket of change can stretch, and there are no set trajectories for its
expansion (xvi).
The movement from tunnels, to crossroads, to pockets creates a bizarre

clash of mental images, but one can identify the attempt in this veritable
manifesto a suggestion for free exchange, and certainly the anthology is
itself an eclectic collection focusing on theatre, poetry, agricultural shows
and even post-1945 confectionery in Australia. The ambition is explicitly
stated from the start--to broaden the disciplinary range at the core of
adaptation studies, and permanently move away from the vertical
excavatory activities of fidelity criticism. What is acknowledged here is
that for much contemporary scholarship in the humanities, the disciplinary
maps of old make less and less sense, and that adaptation studies is one of
a number of approaches which provide a stimulus for studies which can
soar off in different directions. Julie Sanders, another of Leitch’s would-be
escapees from adaptation studies, offers an optimistic preface to this
volume, asserting that: “as adaptation studies embeds itself within
publishing catalogues and university curricula, a new need arises, I think,
to map the future landscape(s) of the field,” to be achieved through “ever
more sustained and complex inter- and intra-disciplinary engagements and
encounters” (ix). The use of the term “encounter” gives also an interesting
flavor of much recent adaptation criticism, which raises the readers’
consciousness to that fact that whatever their own disciplinary locations
and concerns, they may be co-opted into the business of adaptation studies
even when they think they are doing something else.
As Voigts-Virchow points out, though, it is not just a question of
mapping new paths, but an issue of language and cultural difference. The
distinctions between intermediality and adaptation studies are not just
about differing or incompatible theoretical roots, but also about intellectual
traditions, the boundaries between different scholarly disciplines in
different cultures, contradictory university policies and even the differing
habits of academic and journal publishers across the globe. Maybe
18 Chapter Two
translation theory is required to help us communicate more effectively

across language, culture, and academic discursive formation? Lawrence
Venuti argues the case for the contribution translation theory might make,
observing that “in adaptation studies informed by the discourse of
intertextuality, the film is not compared directly to the literary text, but
rather to a version of it mediated by an ideological critique” (28). Venuti’s
comparison of adaptation to translation studies hinges on the fact that
neither approach is governed by a simplified comparison to source text; he
argues that“[j]ust as no translation can be judged through a simple
comparison to the source text it translates because of the manifold losses
and gains that necessarily result from the translation process, so no film
adaptation can be judged merely through a comparison to its prior
materials because of the extensive and complicated ways it processes
them” (35). In emphasizing the significance of the mediation of
ideological critique, we are encouraged to reflect upon whether the main
barriers between intermedial and adaptation studies approaches is that of
ideology, specifically ideologies about what constitutes “Theory” as the
term has come to be deployed and constructed since the 1980s.
For some critics adaptation studies falls short because of the perception
that it exists, in Timothy Corrigan’s words, “in the gap” of established
disciplines in the humanities and/or media studies,1 so that it is conceived
as piratically stealing such methods and process and concepts to suit its
purpose. For Guerric DeBona in another recent volume, early adaptation
critics were doing something akin to salvage work:
Adaptation critics in those days must have viewed themselves as

something like rescue workers sifting through what was left of a museum
after it was hit by a great roaring tempest of mass culture: they had to sort
through and pick up the well-known fragments in an effort to salvage what
was left of precious cultural artifacts – the canonical author, the established
text, the essential meaning of the literary source (2).
When he refers to the “great roaring tempest of mass culture” he is of

course referring to the preoccupation of literary studies with so-called
“canonical” texts, and adaptation’s position as hybrid area doing the work
that film studies and literary studies combined could or would not do in
those early days. Talking of his own critical approach to adaptation and
classical Hollywood film, DeBona expresses the wish to “enter more
deeply into the new geography of literary adaptation by exploring this
1
See Timothy Corrigan, “Literature on screen, a history: in the gap.” The
Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen. Eds. Deborah Cartmell and Imelda
Whelehan. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 2007, 29-44.
territory through the lens of cultural politics” (1). Once more we are asked
to reconsider adaptation studies’ place on the critical map; beyond the
crossroads adaptations studies might find its own possible terra nullius yet
to be inhabited or appropriated. But this concept relies on the assumption
that no one has been there before, or if they have, their cultural products
carry no cultural significance, in disciplinary terms.
Returning momentarily to Voigts-Virchow’s model of theoretical
perspectives as buildings or businesses, Stephen Greenblatt provides a
broader perspective on the virtues or otherwise of disciplinary integrity
when he recalls being shown round his faculty building as a young
academic, and understanding that the wider implications of the faculty
space were that this building provided both physical and philosophical
boundaries, and there was no need to travel beyond its four walls. In a
preface to a collection on Interart poetics published in the late 1990s, he
reflects upon the traditional alignment of humanities disciplines and
remarks that “the boundary lines have faded, the frontier guards have all
gone home, and the landscape somehow looks different. In some of my
colleagues this change has produced disorientation and melancholy, but in
others – and I will include myself – it feels more like liberation” (14). In
recalling the rigidity of disciplinary boundaries at work in his early
university career (which forestalled and even discouraged interdisciplinary
liaisons), he sees cross-fertilization and the challenging of boundaries as a
form of liberation. It is important for adaptation and intermedial critics to
recall that for all of us there were older prison-houses from which,
presumably, all kinds of inter- trans and cross- disciplinary exponents were
busily tunneling away.
Both intermediality and adaptation studies critics made their escapes,
then, but their routes took them in different directions, resulting in
numerous discussions about their relative closeness or distinctiveness.
While I think the potential for cross fertilization between the two is huge
and already happening (particularly through the work of mainland
European critics), for Irina Rajewsky, “intermediality may serve foremost
as a generic term for all those phenomena that (as indicated by the prefix
inter) in some way take place between media. ‘Intermedial’ therefore
designates those configurations which have to do with a crossing of
borders between media, and which thereby can be differentiated from
intramedial phenomena as well as from transmedial phenomena” (46). For
Rajewsky, it seems, intermediality is the umbrella term that embraces
adaptation, and this may well have been the case in previous decades. But
adaptation studies has traveled further, and certainly beyond the formal
discourses of mediality, or any pure focus on film versions of literary
20 Chapter Two
works. The “sociological” strain (to evoke Dudley Andrew’s sense of what
was missing in adaptation) emerges more powerfully and the process of
adaptation itself as a source of disruption, consumption, revision and
cultural reinvention takes on more urgent focus.
Exploring the territory of adaptation studies, as De Bona puts it,
necessitates a reconsideration of existing theoretical frameworks. There
are a number of critics who complain about what they identify as
adaptation studies’ “absences.” Kathleen Murray declares that: “There is
no satisfying general theory about adaptation” (93). The yearning for a
model theoretical approach is usually disingenuous, since many, like
DeBona, luxuriate in the spaces on its vast terrain to set up their shop (or
pub). Adaptation studies offers countless opportunities for further blending
and adapting, just as breaking free of disciplinary integrity and watching
its symbolic power fade was for Greenblatt a career-defining opportunity.
Dudley Andrew has recently suggested that adaptation studies has two
incompatible strands–the “vertical” approaches of fidelity criticism which
anchors an adaptation to its sources; and the “horizontal” approach (now
considered more common and productive) of cultural contextual criticism
(MacCabe et al., 27-39). This model gives us another visual image to toy
with–that of fidelity critics (if indeed there are any left) building possibly
rather shaky towers of fidelity critiques, versus the viral spread of
perspectives which are beginning to yield approaches and responses to
adaptation which far extend the outer reaches of film and literary studies
(as found in Hopton et. al.’s Pockets of Change, for instance).
Both critics new to the debates, and seasoned commentators on
adaptation argue that adaptation studies lacks some crucial critical or
theoretical component that might complete or correct, and that therefore
this perception of “lack” might benefit from further exploration. Thomas
Leitch, one of adaptation studies’ resident metacritics, complained in 2003
that “despite its venerable history, widespread practice, and apparent
influence, adaptation theory has remained tangential to the thrust of film
study because it has never been undertaken with conviction and theoretical
rigor” (149). Of course, the fact that adaptation studies is tangential to film
studies (and literary studies) may well be the key to its success and
continuing development. Although the conviction that adaptation criticism
is fundamentally anchored to literary studies with some kind of tap root is
a persistent one, it is scarcely an accurate reflection of the work being
done in the field. Rainer Emig and Pascal Nicklas observe that when
academics criticize the pre-eminence of literature in adaptation studies,
there is a tendency to simply reverse old value-laden hierarchies (119).
Robert Stam’s assertion that cinema is multi-track, whereas literature is a
“single track medium” retains the sense that disciplinary conflict and
tension are at the heart of adaptation studies problems (56). Emig and
Nicklas ponder that:
these [theoretical positions] might be the teething troubles of an emerging

new discipline. If this is the case, then careful and regular dental care
might be in order to ensure that Adaptation Studies continue to retain their
bite when it comes to productively challenging established disciplines,
readings, viewings, hearings, feelings, etc. then they might indeed
demonstrate the potential to bring about what is so frequently demanded of
scholars in the Humanities, but what they generally find very hard to
achieve: a true interdisciplinarity. (119)
True interdisciplinarity would be very hard to achieve for adaptation

studies, given that it thrives as the outsider, offering challenges to the
established disciplines and, in occupying this position, suggests the space
in between – “inter” – might be all that is left. For others, adaptation
studies is simply built on shaky foundations; for Krämer, “The lashing out
against fidelity criticism in Adaptation Studies is an attempt to distinguish
the field as an academic discipline by constructing a categorical difference
from other forms of reflecting on adaptations and thus claiming an
authority beyond that bestowed by the mere social sanctioning of
academic work” (175). This assertion is underpinned by more assumptions
– principally that adaptation studies has yet to prove its mettle as a “real”
academic discipline because it is implied that the distinctions between its
practices and those of, say, broadsheet newspaper reviewers are
insufficiently supported by disciplinary credibility, as well as characterized
by what Krämer sees as the “excessive subjectivity” and foundationless
assertions found in many case studies (175). So it seems that for
adaptation studies to find itself out of the impasse it needs to seek
“authority” in the most conventional way possible – to construct a
“disciplinary” integrity that can effectively mark out its own territory.
As already noted, Krämer believes that adaptation studies is principally
concerned with the rejection of the centrality of fidelity as the basis for
critical judgment of an adaptation that distinguishes it from mainstream
broadsheet reviews. Similarly J. D. Connor critiques adaptation studies’
need to restate the rejection of fidelity critiques, and argues that this
restatement of aims fails to account for the persistence of fidelity in
popular discourses of adaptation, so that adaptation studies “must account
for its own blind spot: What has the campaign against fidelity failed to get
at? And given this consistent failure to achieve its goals, why do critics
persist in calling for an end to fidelity?” (Connor) For me this construction
22 Chapter Two
is a more useful one; if we return to fidelity debates, what we also find are
all the negative associations of adaptation studies with its perceived
literariness, obsession with origins, reinstatements of cultural hierarchy
and its seeming critical naivety; whereas intermediality as a term suggests
a ready engagement across media and less tolerance towards traditional
cultural hierarchies, whether true or not. At the moment adaptation studies
is attracting interesting refugees from many disciplines, and adaptation
critics are plundering diverse critical tools for their own ends, even when
those disciplines seem far removed from each other, with only a shared use
of the term “adaptation.”
In a recent article linking adaptations in culture with those in biology,
Gary Bortolotti and Linda Hutcheon assert that:
What the recognition of the homology between cultural and biological

evolution can provide is an alternative means of deciding what we could
consider the success of an adaptation – that is, not a simply faithful (aka
good or bad) in relation to a “source.” Instead the “source” could perhaps
be more productively viewed as the “ancestor” from which adaptations
derive directly by descent. As in biological evolution, descent with
modification is essential. (446)
Adaptation studies itself remains dogged by its on origins and inspires

some curious assertions even now. Fredric Jameson in his afterword to the
collection True to the Spirit (2011) asserts: “I propose the following law:
the novel and its film adaptation must not be of equal quality. A great film
can be made from a mediocre novel; most great novels only yield second-
rate movie versions. I omit the logical possibility of films being novelized
for obvious reasons, although it exists” (217). Assiduous scholars of
adaptation reading these words will recognize here a similar proposition
ventured by Joy Gould Boyum in 1985, and it is with some irony that we
read in MacCabe’s introduction to the same volume that “adaptation
studies, rather like Don Quixote, continue to fight the day before
yesterday’s battles” (7).
In my determination not to fight yesterday’s battles I have taken you on
a rather circuitous tour of recent tendencies in adaptation studies. I am sure
you realized that despite my title I was not going to answer the question
“where are we,” but rather niggle away at what others have also noticed –
a tendency to look for directions or to want to plant one’s own flag on an
empty-looking piece of ground. It may well be as Laura Mulvey asserts,
echoing James Naremore, that adaptation studies will one day become part
of a general theory of repetition (78), but happily it seems to me that
adaptation studies in practice is still advancing in several directions at
once. Whether at one point we will arrive at a crossroads and find, like
Alice in Through the Looking Glass, that the multiple signs actually direct
us to a single destination, remains to be seen.
24 Chapter Two
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Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity. Eds. Colin MacCabe,
Kathleen Murray and Rick Warner. New York: Oxford UP. 2011. 27-
39. Print.
Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New
Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000. Print.
Bortolotti, Gary R., and Linda Hutcheon. “On the Origin of Adaptations:
Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and ‘Success’ – Biologically.” New
Literary History 38.3 (2007): 443-458. Print.
Cardwell, Sarah. Adaptation Revisited: Television and the Classic Novel.
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Cartmell, Deborah and Imelda Whelehan. Screen Adaptation: Impure
Cinema. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2010. Print.
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Corrigan, Timothy. “Literature on Screen, a History: in the Gap.”
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—. “Adaptation Studies at a Crossroads.” Adaptation 1.1 (2008): 63-77.
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Mulvey, Laura. “Max Ophul’s Auteurist Adaptations”. True to the Spirit:
Film Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity. Eds. Colin MacCabe,
Kathleen Murray and Rick Warner. New York: Oxford UP. 2011. 75-
89. Print.
Rajewsky, Irina O. “Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A
Literary Perspective on Intermediality.” Intermédialités 6 (Automne
2005): 43-64. Print.
Stam, Robert. “The Dialogics of Adaptation”. Ed. James Naremore. 54-76.
London: The Athlone Press, 2000. Print.
Venuti, Lawrence. “Adaptation, Translation, Critique.” Journal of Visual
Culture 6.1 (2007): 25-43. Print.
Voigts-Virchow, Eckart. “Metadaptation: Adaptation and Intermediality –
Cock and Bull.” Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance 2.2
(2009): 137-152. Print.
CHAPTER THREE
CROSS-CULTURAL ADAPTATION BY MEDIEVAL

TRAVELERS ALONG THE SILK ROAD:
CONCEPTS OF UNDERSTANDING
VICTORIA BLEDSLOE
“Visum fuit michi recte quod ingrederer quoddam aluid speculum”

(Rubruquensis 171)
In an attempt to capture his experiences in words, the Franciscan monk

Wilhelm von Rubruk chose this sentence to describe the extraordinary
impressions he had gained throughout his travels along the Silk Road. The
unexplored continent had made a deep impact on him. In fact, it seemed to
be so very different from anything he had seen or known before, that it
appeared to be “aluid speculum” – a new world. Like Wilhelm, many other
travelers left the European continent in the thirteenth century to follow a
route that is known to us as the Silk Road. We are most fortunate to be
able to read about their experiences and impressions in their travel journals
that remained preserved until today. They bear witness to the travelers’
routes, the struggles they had to withstand on their journeys and the things
they saw.
Especially this last point will be essential to this chapter: what did
European travelers see, or even more crucially, how did they encounter the
new world and its alien cultures? How did they value what they saw, and
how did they position themselves within the “aluid speculum”? This
chapter will attempt to give a cross-cultural analysis of medieval travelers’
ability to recognize, describe and understand the Other. The term
understanding will be based on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s theory, which
focuses especially on ideas such as “horizon” – in other words, how
members of other cultures approach familiar phenomena. Such modes of
cultural reflection will help us to understand the basic fundamentals of a
medieval traveler’s life. The work is based upon the travel journals of
Cross-Cultural Adaptation by Medieval Travelers along the Silk Road 27
Johannes de Plano Carpini and Odorico of Pordenone; both traveled along

the Silk Road in the thirteenth century and collected their impressions in
their writings, and by doing so offered a unique insight into the
significance of the trade route for the European medieval world, that was
something beyond Christian and Islamic cultures.
The Silk Road

The network of trade routes that Ferdinand von Richthofen described
as the Silk Road had already been in use as early as 1000 BC (Reichert
44). Proof of this was found in the hair of an Egyptian mummy; the silk
threads that were discovered therein were found to be of Chinese origin
and therefore had traveled a long way from China to Egypt (Reichert 44),
using routes such as those from the Chinese cities of Chang'an and
Luoyang to important ports in the Mediterranean sea like Antioch (now
known as Antakya), Tyrus, Akkon and Alexandria. There was a huge
variety of goods that were transported, mostly by caravan; the most
famous were Chinese porcelain and silk, spices, gold and gemstones
(Reichert 46).
We have to distinguish between local, regional and trans-regional
trade-routes. Of course, goods for the local markets, such as farming
products, as well as regional merchandise, were conveyed along the same
routes as the trans-regional trade. However the focus of this chapter
concentrates on the trans-regional uses of the Silk Road, as this particular
trade always involved cross-cultural contact (Conermann 65). The first
documented direct trade happened in 166 AD, when a legation of the
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius came to the Luayang. After this, we
don’t have any documented proof of a direct contact for the next centuries
(Reichert 43). Due to the length and the risky condition of the route, it was
most common to transport the goods via a network of regional traders.
Market places resembled transfer sites, where the merchandise would be
exchanged and pursue its way along the trade network (Reichert 44).
The next documented direct contact between Asia and Europe occurred
in the thirteenth century. From this time onwards a dense amount of
documents can be consulted, that describe the route, the countries and the
cultures on the way, giving proof of an increasingly frequent use of the
Silk Road. The variety of published travel journals reflects a rising
curiosity about the Asian continent within the European population
(Conermann 62).
28 Chapter Three
The Limits of Knowledge

But why the sudden interest in this trade route and the territories along
the way? For centuries most members of European civilizations had a very
particular view of the world, which for them was divided into “Christian”
and “Islamic” territories, based on a long history of trade and war (Kulke
9).
Around 1244 though, they were suddenly forced to face the fact that
there might be more to the world when a very offensive and, in their eyes,
brutal army started to attack the first European territories. It was an enemy,
who fought very differently from anything they knew, while ignoring the
common rules of European warfare that were defined by Christian beliefs
of honor and hierarchy. This enemy easily vanquished the heavily armored
and therefore less flexible knights, who were believed to be the best
fighters in the world (Weatherford 132ff.) This new enemy was the
Mongolians, who had expanded their power under Genghis Khan so that
they now felt empowered to attack the European world. The sudden
appearance of a new, absolutely alien civilization caused a huge irritation
in the western world. In order to find an explanation, they turned at first to
an eschatological reasoning: it was believed that the Mongolians might be
the army of the legendary priest Johann. He was believed to live
somewhere in the east from where he would come to support the Christian
world against Islam (Kulke 9). But after the first attacks on the Christian
territories of Hungary, another religious explanation had to be found:
according to prevailing beliefs, the Mongolian troops were believed to be
the apocalyptic riders. However this explanation lost its plausibility when
the Mongolians withdrew and disappeared for some considerable time.
When the Mongolian troops drew back, they had left a substantial question
in the heads of the European civilization: who were those people? Where
did they come from? And most important, if the western world didn't know
RIWKHLUH[LVWHQFHZKDWHOVHZDVRXWWKHUH"0QNOHr 17).
Departure to the New World

In order to find explanations for those questions, European rulers
VWDUWHG WR VHQG GLSORPDWV RQ WKHLU ZD\ DV ZHOO DV PLVVLRQDULHV 0QNOHU
43). But not only reason and religion drew people to the unknown
continent: traders had realized that there might be a huge new world, full
of profitable goods. This was the beginning of a time of journeys into the
unexplored, into new and alien territories, where nothing but a few legends
were known about. The key to the solution of the situation was gaining
knowledge. Silk, gold and porcelain were attractive goods, especially for
the upper classes, but there wasn't much knowledge about the people who
produced the silk. According to legend they were believed to be tall, red-
haired and blue-eyed. There were other myths about unicorns, huge ants,
and humans with one eye, huge ears or without mouths, which were
supposed to live in the unknown territories of the east (Reichert 45)
In order to understand the way medieval European travelers adapted to
the new experience of travel, we have to consider the reason for their
travels: What was their goal? Also, we need to understand the self-identity
RI PHGLHYDO WUDYHOHUV ZKLFK LQIOXHQFHG WKHLU YLHZV 0DULQD 0QNOHU
suggests that mostly traders, missionaries and diplomats traveled along the
Silk Road – each of them had reasons for embarking on the journey and
therefore different pretensions to the kind of information they collected
and passed on (64-7). Traders were mostly interested in forging profitable
contacts and generating economic information: we know the least about
their experiences, as they usually passed their information by word of
mouth. Of course there is Marco Polo’s travel journal, but it is uncertain
how trustworthy some of his reporWV DUH 0QNOHU 0QNOHU FDOOV
such knowledge instrumental knowledge, mostly focused on practical and
current information, enabling them to expedite the trading process (64).
Missionaries needed to adapt far more directly to unfamiliar cultures,
so that they could accomplish their task of bringing the Christian faith to
Asia. They needed to establish close links with local people and their
culture to underline the importance of Christianity and find acceptance.
0QNOHU FDOOV WKHLU NQRZOHGJH RSHUDWLRQDl (65). The third group of
travelers, the diplomats, required categorical knowledge. Their process of
adaptation consisted of naming essential elements of the alien culture as a
means of making sense of the Other. It was this process of domestication
and categorization that helped bring about a diplomatic discourse between
cultures (65).
The travel journals of Odorico of Pordenone

and Johannes de Plano Carpini
However there are more comprehensive records of the ways in which
medieval travelers coped with the experience of dealing with other
cultures. I would like to discuss these points through the works of Odorico
of Pordenone and Johannes de Plano Carpini. Carpini, a diplomat by
profession, was sent by Pope Innozenz IV to the Mongolian territories in
order to establish categorical knowledge through diplomacy. This was no
HDV\ SURFHVV 0DULQD 0QNOHU REVHUYHV WKDW GLSORPDWLF FRQWDFWV DUH
30 Chapter Three
usually established after a substantial period of cross-cultural

communication, that was not necessarily political but simply a means of
discovering how other cultures reacted to different phenomena:
“Diplomacy functioned here as an agent without the goal of an agreement
or a communication, but with the goal of understanding the other” (30, my
translation).
Odorico was an Italian Franciscan monk, who traveled around the
Asian continent in between 1314 and1330 as a missionary. He kept a
travel journal, in which he wrote down “wondrous stories from my travels
to the land of the Tartaris, which I have seen with my own eyes” (25, my
translation). He chronicled his experiences not only for clerical use, but for
European readers; his principal focus of interest centered on the
fascinating and new things that he saw, some of which were so
unbelievable that he consciously omitted them from his journal, in case
that his readers would not believe what he was saying (129).
7KH *HUPDQ KLVWRULDQ +DUU\ .KQHO REVHUYHV WKDW ³WKH IXQGDPHQWDO
difference in between the self, as the known, and the Other, as the
unknown, strongly manifested itself [in the Middle Ages] as a fixed and
inflexible social, cultural and religious opposition” (415, my translation).
This led to a characteristically ethnocentric view of the world that
“downgrade[d] every culture outside the own horizon” (415, my
translation). How does this notion apply to those travelers, who moved
outside European territories and tried to adapt to other cultures along the
Silk Road? Were they capable of extending their European horizon of
expectations? Carpini declares his subject position at the beginning of his
journal:
To All Christians, who will read this, I, brother Johannes de Plano Carpini,
legate of the apostolic chair, to the Tartaris and other people in the east,
send God’s grace now and glory in the future, as well as triumph over the
enemies of God and our Lord Jesus Christ (17).
He admits to his fears of exploring Mongolian territory and its people: “As
from them, we fear, will come great danger upon God’s church in the
nearest future” (17, my translation). Nonetheless he makes great efforts to
chronicle the life and cultures of his hosts in detail, by employing different
categories such as clothing, manners, gender divisions, authorities and
laws. Such categories were probably based on a catalogue of questions
written down at a &KXUFK &RXQFLO PHHWLQJ LQ /\RQ 0QNOHU P\
translation).
Each chapter of Carpini’s chronicle begins with an introduction,
structuring the chapter itself: “At first I will speak about the beginning of
authority, second about the lords, and third about the authority of the
emperor and the lords” (41, my translation). In spite of his pro-Christian
stance, his grasp of alien cultures is surprisingly detailed and informed.
This might not seem like a great accomplishment; but in terms of the
ideology of the Middle Ages, it represents a genuine attempt to adapt to
RWKHUFXOWXUHV$FFRUGLQJWR.KQHO¶VWKHRU\LWZRXOGEHUDWKHUXQLTXHIRU
a medieval cleric to explain not only the negative, but also the positive
aspects of a completely different culture and religion. Carpini describes
Mongolian war practices, especially the custom of killing every human
being in the area and not leaving anyone alive (72). On the other hand, he
praised their work ethic, equestrian abilities, troop organization and
community rules (86). Crimes like adultery were punishable by death
(52ff.). He believed that some of their values might be superior to those of
the Christians:
The Tartaris are more obedient to their lords, than any other people in the
world; they honor them and don't lie easily. They hardly ever fight with
words, and never turn violent with each other. Fights, Wars, Bodily Harm
or Murder never happen amongst them. Also you won’t find thieves or
robbery of valuable goods […] They share their foods with each other fair,
even if they have just little (52, my translation).
They are not spoiled people and are very frugal [….] They don't seem to be
jealous [...] and nobody condemns each other, but they help each other as
much as it is appropriate (53).
Carpini draws attention to the culture’s negative aspects: “They [the

Mongolians] are very arrogant towards foreign people and look down on
them, even if they are from aristocratic descent” (53). However it seems
that Carpini viewed such behavior negatively, that he witnessed in contact
with outsiders of the Mongolian culture, like himself, or practices that
oppose European manners or values.
In Carpini’s defense, however, he is capable of adopting a more neutral
stance, especially when talking about the Mongolians’ customs, clothes
and habits (56). He made a genuine attempt to engage with the Mongolian
people, talk, live and interact with them so as to obtain a diverse insight
into their culture, and subsequently chronicle his experiences for a
European audience. While this process of adaptation did not eliminate
prejudice, it nonetheless represented a genuine attempt to adapt to and
accommodate alternative perspectives.
Unlike Carpini, Odorico did not write a structured report, but rather
offers a collection of stories that he saw or heard about during his sixteen
year progress through the Asian continent. He begins his narration with the
32 Chapter Three
statement that he saw “Many great and wondersam things” (25, my

translation). Those two words alone emphasize that his view of other
cultures is not negative. He could have also written “Irritating and
Horrible,” “Weird and Different.” But instead he chose the words “great
and wondersam.” In his journal, he describes many different cultures and
people, whom he met along his journey. Odorico gives many examples of
similar experiences, like eating the best bread in the world made in Paten
(64), observing trees that were used to produce flowers (64), and metals
that protected humans of a certain tribe against injuries caused from
weapons made out of any kind of metal (64).
Other customs or habits that he witnessed, he found rather
“wondersam.” Most often they had to do with the adoration of idols. He
found the idea of praying to a bull in Polumbum, rather irritating. Still, it
caught his interest and he tried to draw a detailed picture of the religion
(54). He tried his best to be even-handed in judgment, as when he
describes the Chinese tradition of wrapping the feet of girls in order to
keep them small (57), or a tradition in a Tibetian tribe which held that the
number of lovers a woman had had prior to a marriage increased her
chances of finding a good husband (61). Odorico showed deep interest in
gaining knowledge about the people he met on his journeys. Often he uses
the comparison with his own country to describe new impressions,
HVSHFLDOO\ ZKHQ LW FDPH WR PHDVXUHPHQWV IRRG RU DWWLUH 0QNOHU
identifies such comparisons as oscillating between detecting similarities
and stating differences (155).
Transcultural Understanding
Both travelers showed interest in the Other, but did they make active
efforts to understand it? Understanding is a difficult term to define: the
philosopher Gadamer offers the following framework. It represents a
distillation of individual identity, a construct of the surrounding cultural
environment, defined by Gadamer as “a historically effected
consciousness, embedded in the particular history and culture” (308). He
calls this our horizon: any exploration of the Other is automatically filtered
through that horizon – or pre-knowledge (304). Understanding evolves out
of a process of reconciling one’s horizon with one’s immediate experience
of other cultures. Knowledge evolves through a process of adaptation: a
conscious attempt to explore and make sense of all aspects of the Other.
This process happens dialogically, employing critical self-reflection and an
openness to new experiences and ideas. Gadamer terms this hermeneutic
understanding (307ff). In this sense, having a horizon requires us to look
beyond the known, while subjecting our existing knowledge to repeated

revaluation: “Horizons only alter as a result of the work of agile minds”
(309, my translation). Carpini and Odorico showed a great openness,
especially in the medieval context. They were highly interested in details
and empathized with the Other. They had no fear of getting into close
contact with other cultures in the hope of understanding them better:
curiosity played a great part in their adaptive processes. In particular
Odorico wanted to collect more and more details about foreign cultures
and to travel further and further. But the mere acknowledgment and
interest of other cultures, in Gadamer’s sense, is not sufficient for
adaptation; it has to be accompanied with critical self-reflection. Both
Carpini and Odorico found it difficult to transcend their own identities as
Western Christians, in order to start a dialog with other cultures. This may
have been one of the crucial bases of an increasingly negative view on
Mongolian culture in later medieval times. Of course it can be said that
these medieval travelers were surprisingly flexible and open to the Other;
but they could not adapt in such a way as to construct a genuinely
transcultural view of the world. On the other hand, maybe we should ask
ourselves if we have adapted any further than the medieval travelers. If
self-reflection is so important, we may yet have to come to the conclusion
that we still have to invent better strategies to collect and make sense of
our cross-cultural knowledge. But maybe we have to realize that we are
still just travelers along the Silk Road, collecting and transporting
knowledge on our very own horizons.
34 Chapter Three
Works Cited
Carpini, Johannes de Plano. Kunde von den Mongolen. Fremde Kulturen
in alten Berichten. Ed. Felicitas Schmieder. Vol. 3. Sigmaringen:
Akadmie Verlag, 1997. Print.
Conermann, Stephan. “Unter dem Einfluß des Monsuns – Der Handel
=ZLVFKHQ $UDELHQ XQG 6GDVLHQ´ Fernhandel in Antike und
Mittelalter. Ed. Robert Bohn. Darmstadt: Theiss, 2008. 61-80. Print.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Wahrheit und Methode 7ELQJHQ 0RKU
Print.
Kulke, Hermann. “Die Seidenstrasse in der Eurasischen Geschichte.”
Fernhandel in Antike und Mittelalter. Ed. Robert Bohn. Darmstadt:
Theiss, 2008. 1-17. Print.
.KQHO +DUUy. “Das Fremde und das Eigene Mittelalter.” Europäische
Mentalitätsgeschichte. Ed. Peter Dinzelbacher. Stuttgart: Krऺner, 2008.
415-28. Print.
0QNOHU0DULQDErfahrung des Fremden: Die Beschreibung Ostasiens in
den Augenzeugenberichten des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts. Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 2000. Print.
Reichert, Folker. “Auf der Reise in eine Andere Welt.” Fernhandel in
Antike und Mittelalter. Ed. Robert Bohn. 43-60. Darmstadt: Theiss,
2008. Print.
Rubruquensis, Wilhelmus O.F.M. Itinerarium ad partes orientales. Ed. A.
Van Wyngaert. Itinera et relationes Fratrum Minorum saeculi XIII,
(Sinica Franciscana I). np: 1992. Print.
Von Pordenone, Odorich. Die Reise des Seligen Odorich von Pordenone
nach Indien und China. Ed. Folker Reichert. Heidelberg: Manutius
Verlag, 1987. Print.
Weatherford, Jack. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.
New York: Broadway Books, 2005. Print.
CHAPTER FOUR
ADAPTATION OR APPROPRIATION:
RESISTANCE TO CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY IN THE NATIONAL ANTHEMS
OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE1
SINAN AKILLI
As some of the other contributions to this volume also attest, cross-

cultural adaptation has been an important part of the encounters of the East
and the West throughout history, the results of which have been manifested
in the emergence of myriad adapted and/or appropriated ideas and
practices on both sides of the exchange. Over the past decade or so, a
renewed scholarly interest in the East-West relations, this time from a
post-Saidian position, resulted in the discovery of previously unknown
aspects of the encounters that involved the civilizations of the East and
those of the West. For instance, in Looking East: English Writing and the
Ottoman Empire before 1800 (2007), Gerald Maclean explored the
influences of Ottoman culture on British cultures in the early modern
period. Looking East was in fact an extension and an illustration of a new,
objective and more sober understanding of East-West relations in history,
which did not essentialize the West as a perpetually colonizing entity or
reduce the East to the position of a victim which has always suffered under
western oppression. Moreover, with this new approach, the interactions
rather than the counteractions in the context of the history of East-West
relationships have come to the foreground. This new understanding had
been put forth in an earlier volume Re-orienting the Renaissance: Cultural
Exchanges with the East (2005). Maclean himself had edited Re-orienting
1
An earlier version of this article was published as “Western Style Royal/National
Anthems of the Ottoman Empire: Tracing Resistance to Constitutional Monarchy.”
+DFHWWHSH hQLYHUVLWHVL 7UNL\DW $UDúWÕUPDODUÕ Dergisi (Hacettepe University
Journal of Turkish Studies) 16 (Spring 2012): 7-22.
36 Chapter Four
the Renaissance and the travel writer William Dalrymple had contributed
with a foreword entitled “The Porous Frontiers of Islam and Christendom:
A Clash or Fusion of Civilisations?” in which he challenged Samuel
Huntington’s – and his mentor Bernard Lewis’s – “clash of civilizations”
thesis. This view basically sees the world as being “multipolar” and
“multicivilizational” and argues that “[d]uring most of human existence,
contacts between civilizations were intermittent or nonexistent”
(Huntington 21). For this reason, Huntington argues that “the most
dangerous conflicts” in the world are expected to be between different
cultural entities such as Islam and Christendom, not between social classes
(28). The more recent scholarly appreciation of the East-West relations
typically rejects such isolationist reductionism. In 2008, Europe Observed:
Multiple Gazes in Early Modern Encounters (a collection of essays edited
by Kumkum Chatterjee and Clement Hawes), reinforced this new critical
position by emphasizing the agency and, to some extent, the dominant
position of the East in these cultural, diplomatic and commercial
exchanges. In Noble Brutes: How Eastern Horses Transformed English
Culture (2008), Donna Landry presented yet another extended illustration
of how the new critical position can be put into practice by studying the
culture and practices surrounding the horses brought to the British Isles
from the East in roughly the same historical period covered by the
previously-mentioned works.
Generally speaking, one common aspect of all of the critical studies
listed above was their interest in and references to the cultural encounters
and exchanges between Europe, more specifically Britain, and the
Ottoman Empire. The only exception is Europe Observed, the editors of
which stated that the “Ottoman Empire, adjacent to Europe and
strategically concerned with it throughout much of the early modern era,
provides enough material that one can compare observations from
different historical moments” (Chatterjee and Hawes 15), but could not
include a chapter on the Ottoman Empire as “no major study by Turkish
VFKRODUVRQWKLVVXEMHFWKDV\HWDSSHDUHG´$NÕOOÕ³(XURSH2EVHUYHG´
Nonetheless, it seems that up until the late eighteenth century, the cultural
influence of the Ottoman world on Europe was significantly more than the
European cultural influence on the Ottoman world. To illustrate, one may
refer to Maclean’s concept of the “imperial envy” that the English felt in
the face of the Ottoman grandeur in this period (245), which they tried to
compensate for by displaying Turkey carpets on the walls of their
mansions, and to Landry’s account in Noble Brutes of how some cultural
practices that are considered typically British today, such as the
horseracing culture epitomized in the English thoroughbred horses, began
Adaptation or Appropriation 37
with the import of Eastern blood horses from the Ottoman lands. The
Ottomans, in return, borrowed metals, manufactured goods and new
military technology from Europe. Whatever cultural influence came from
Europe to the Ottoman world such as a taste for western art and music, it
was only available for and restricted to the Ottoman élite, and thus not a
major impact on the general Ottoman culture and society.
The nineteenth century presented a different picture, one in which the
balance of cultural influence weighed increasingly heavier on the side of
the West in general and Europe in particular. Accordingly, in nineteenth-
century encounters between the Ottoman Empire and European countries,
the resulting cross-cultural adaptation became a one-way process, in which
European culture, and mostly technology, would be the adapted and the
Ottomans, the adapters. However, we learn from various sources that most
of the nineteenth-century Ottoman adaptations of European ways were
practically inefficient and often resulted in awkward situations. For
example, in his travel account entitled On Horseback through Asia Minor
(1877), Frederick Burnaby reported the views of an American missionary
based in the central Anatolian city of Sivas regarding the adaptation of
European ways by the Ottoman Turks: “They will not advance with the
times in which they live; if they adopt European inventions, they copy
them blindly, and without adapting them to circumstances” (149).
Likewise, with reference to “equestrian East-West cultural exchanges,”
Donna Landry explains how the initial westernization attempts of the early
nineteenth-century Ottoman sultans resulted in “inept imitation of the
French manner of riding long and wearing tight pantaloons,” the long-term
consequences of which were so disastrous in the military sense, that after
the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, cavalry officers in the Turkish
army had to be sent to Italy “to relearn riding forward with shorter
stirrups: a reinvention of the Turkish seat” (65-66). In this chapter, I will
deal with one such cross-cultural adaptation that went wrong: the
adaptation, and appropriation of European royal or national anthems that
took place in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, while also
extending the discussion to focus on contemporary popular culture in the
Republic of Turkey.
Over the past few years, a visible trend has arisen, especially in the
mainstream Western media, to re-construct Turkey as a “model” for the
Middle East and North Africa; this runs alongside the proliferation of a
popular foreign policy discourse in Turkey termed “New Ottomanism.”
Since its early days, this discourse has found immediate and widespread
reception among the conservative right-wing and even the center right
segments of Turkish society, as it implies a “new” Turkey, extending its
38 Chapter Four
influence over the same Middle Eastern and North African territories as
the former Ottoman Empire. To emphasize the significance of this
discourse, new cultural products have emerged, from car decals to T-shirts
and home decoration items, popular books, magazines and television
shows, and the ostentatious display of maps of the Ottoman Empire in
highbrow prime-time television debates. The fact that Fetih 1453
(Conquest 1453), the film with the highest budget in the history of Turkish
cinema so far, with an estimated budget of $8m (“Fetih 1453,”) broke box-
office records in only four days after its release on 16 February 2012 is an
indication of the pervasiveness and popularity of New Ottomanism in
FRQWHPSRUDU\ 7XUNLVK VRFLHW\ $OWKRXJK WKH KLVWRULDQ øOEHU 2UWD\OÕ KDV
pointed out that the prospect of Turkey’s becoming an imperial power
again is simply impossible, he understands the significance of this New
Ottomanism discourse (³<HQL2VPDQOÕFÕOÕN´7RVWXG\WKHPDWHULDOFXOWXUH
surrounding New Ottomanism is as important as studying the discourse
itself, so as to discover whether the legacy of the Ottoman Empire has
anything to offer to the contemporary Turkish nation, as an alternative to
WKH UHSXEOLFDQ GLVFRXUVH HVWDEOLVKHG E\ 0XVWDID .HPDO $WDWUN 7KLV
contribution will deal with a study of the symbolic meaning of the
Ottoman royal/national anthems, as disseminated to the wider public in
2009 through an audio CD that was distributed free with NTV Tarih (Issue
3), a popular history magazine. Its focus will center on the meanings of
these anthems to show how they symbolized the resistance of Ottoman
sultans to the constitutional monarchy. We begin with an early nineteenth-
century travel account:
Learning that the sultan would perform his devotions this day at the
mosque of Beshiktash, we proceeded to that village, in order to have a
view of the Commander of the Faithful. […] We had not occupied our
station more than half an hour, when the military band struck up Sultan
Mahmoud’s March, which announced his approach. As this was an
ordinary occasion, there was little of that pomp and parade which
commonly attends his appearance in public. First came some of the upper
officers of his household; then four or five led horses richly caparisoned;
and last of all, the great man himself […] The men cast their eyes to the
ground, the women looked up to him with eyes most dutifully beaming
with loyalty [….] (De Kay 232-237)
When James Ellsworth De Kay, a nineteenth-century American

biologist who lived in Turkey for about a year, published his Sketches of
Turkey in 1831 and 1832, his declared goal was to “preserve a record of
[his] own impressions [of Turkey], without reference to the descriptions of
many preceding tourists, who seem[ed] to have taken a marvelous pleasure
in exaggerating the vices and suppressing the good points of the Turkish
character” (iii). His travel account provides an even-handed observation of
many Turkish characteristics such as the codes governing males’ social
conduct with females, attitudes towards nature and animals, cleanliness,
and the Turks’ notion of time and time management – or lack of it – as
well as an appreciation of Turkish civilization and culture through
comparison and contrast with American societies and cultures of his time.
However, the above quotation illuminates a problem with the Ottoman
Empire’s attempts to westernize in the nineteenth century; in De Kay’s
description, Sultan Mahmud II’s (1808-1839) arrival is announced by the
western-style Mahmudiye March, composed in 1829 by Giuseppe
Donizetti, an Italian composer employed at the Ottoman court (Kutlay
Baydar 286). Being the first ever official anthem of the Ottoman state, the
Mahmudiye March was a “royal” – not a “national” – anthem and was
used from 1829 to 1839. The definition of “royal” anthems was done as
early as 1908 by Emil Bohn, who categorized anthems into two groups:
“Royal Anthems” (Königshymne), narrating and celebrating the heroic and
epic deeds of a monarch; and “folk” or “country” anthems based on the
VKDUHG H[SHULHQFHV RI QDWLRQV 7HSHEDúÕOÕ $V .XWOD\ %D\GDU
explains, in the nineteenth century a separate “royal” march was dedicated
to each succeeding sultan, and these marches were adopted as ‘national’
anthems of the Ottoman state during the reigns of respective monarchs
(286). Accordingly, the Mahmudiye March was followed by four other
anthems composed in Western style: the Mecidiye, Aziziye, Hamidiye and
5HúDGL\H marches, named DIWHU VXOWDQV $EGOPHFLG $EG]OD]L]
$EGOKDPLG ,, DQG 0HKPHW 5HúDG 2I WKH VL[ VXOWDQV ZKR UHLJQHG DIWHU
Mahmud II, only two (Murat V, who reigned for three months, and
Mehmet Vahdettin, the last sultan of the Empire) did not have anthems
named after them. The Aziziye March was used during the reign of Murat
V, and Donizetti’s Mahmudiye March was the official anthem from 1918
until the end of Sultan Vahdettin’s reign.
The scene in De Kay’s travel account emphasizes the discrepancy
between the adoption of royal anthems as national anthems, and the
symbolic value of the national anthem. The display of ultimate subjection
of the people whose “eyes most dutifully beam […] with loyalty” upon
hearing the Mahmudiye March is the discrepancy and, in fact, the bitter
irony in this scene. In his groundbreaking work Imagined Communities,
Benedict Anderson discusses how nations are “imagined as a community,
because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may
prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal
comradeship [italics mine]” (7). Anthony D. Smith has likewise pointed
40 Chapter Four
out that “[a]s a doctrine of culture and a symbolic language and

consciousness, nationalism’s primary concern is to create a world of
collective [italics mine] cultural identities or cultural nations” (99).
Comradeship and collectivity are the most important keywords for a
national identity and the symbols representing that identity. Drawing on
Anderson’s theories, Kelen and Pavkovic have defined national anthems
as “instruments of unison […] of ‘singing ourselves together,’” as well as
“signature tunes evoking not only the appropriate set of patriotic emotions,
but also triggering a learned set of bodily responses – standing up to show
respect, placing hand over heart, raising a hand clenched in a fist” (443).
According to Anderson’s framework, Ottoman anthems, or at least the
Mahmudiye March, would not have qualified as “national” anthems, as
casting one’s eyes to the ground in a gesture of subjection to a person
(which was the case in the Ottoman practice) does not really seem a
suitable response.
In line with Anderson’s approach on the constructedness of national
identities, Pål Kolstø too has argued that “national identity is not an innate
quality in human beings […] Like any other identity national identity has
to be learnt” (676) through rituals like singing national anthems or
declaring loyalty to a flag. Such symbols may have both unifying and
divisive potential, depending on “what and whom they are being
associated with and how they are being exploited politically” (696). Kolstø
also states that “national symbols derived from mythical ethno-history will
be unifying” (678). On this view Ottoman anthems would not seem to
carry any unifying potential. Having been commissioned by and attributed
to individual monarchs, and reflecting next to nothing from the mythical
ethno-history of Ottoman society, these anthems composed in an alien
Western style failed to convey any message of unity to the Empire’s
diverse peoples. Rather they reflected the citizenry of the Ottoman Empire
as one entity, and even more so in the absence of lyrics, which might have
compensated for the alienating musical element. In fact, the audible
Western influence on supposedly “national” anthems must have implied
notions far less favorable than national unity. In that sense, these anthems
were mirrors reflecting Western pressure on the Ottoman state in the
nineteenth century, as they tried to force the régime to adopt a
constitutional monarchy. Cerulo suggests that such musical expressions
“tell us whether that nation is primarily exerting control over other
countries or succumbing to the control of other countries” (“Sociopolitical
Control” 82). However, it seems that the titles of the anthems were the
sites where this foreign assertion for a new regime was contested, at least
symbolically, by the Ottoman sultans. Vernon Bogdanor defines this type

of regime as follows in Monarchy and the Constitution:
A monarchy in the strict sense of the term is a state ruled by a single

absolute hereditary ruler. A constitutional monarchy, however, is a state
head by a sovereign who rules according to the constitution. Such a
constitution may be “written” and codified […] In a modern constitutional
monarchy, the constitution, whether codified or not, permits the sovereign
to perform only a very small number of public acts without the sanction of
his or her ministers (1).
A constitutional monarchy describes a regime in which the sovereign

does not rule but reigns according to limits set by a national constitution
and/or a parliament. In such regimes, national anthems foregrounded
nations, their common goals and values. The British national anthem “God
Save the King/ Queen,” for example, was written in 1740 “as a celebration
of solidarity, glorifying Admiral Vernon’s victory” in the Anglo-Spanish
conflict from 1739 to 1748; and adopted in 1745 during the reign of King
George II “as a tool for retaining loyalty to the crown” during the Jacobite
rebellion (Cerulo, “Sociopolitical Control” 78). The unifying effects of the
anthem was so visible and functional that, witnessing people’s responses
to “God Save the King” while in England, German composer Joseph
Haydn decided to compose a similar anthem in 1797, “Das Lied Der
Deutschen” (The Song of the Germans) for the German nation
(“Sociopolitical Control” 78). The apparent reference to the monarch in
the lyrics of the British national anthem did not challenge the authority of
Parliament; on the contrary, as Cannon and Griffiths explain, the national
anthem was instrumental in creating the populist image of the monarch as
a symbolic figurehead with “a largely advisory role [….] that […]
compensated increasingly for the loss of formal political power by […]
appealing to a wider range of its subjects, and by concerning itself greatly
with its public image” (530). However, the evolution of the idea of a
constitutional monarchy, and the practice of adopting national anthems in
the Ottoman context of the nineteenth century presented a different
picture. Many different anthems were tried, but none of them really
worked – chiefly because the rulers remained reluctant to share power
with an elected body (for example a parliament) and thereby forge national
unity. They were reluctant to adapt Western-inspired modes of creating
imagined communities (using Anderson’s terms), in spite of their apparent
interest in finding new ways to arrest the declining power of the Ottoman
VWDWH$FFRUGLQJWR&LKDQ2VPDQD÷DR÷OXWKH7UHDW\RI.DUORwitz of 1699
was the milestone after which the Ottomans grew curious about the
42 Chapter Four
reasons for the West’s now-obvious military and technological superiority

(92). Mahmud I (1730-1754), Mustafa III (1757-DQG$EGOKDPLG,
(1774-1789) all encouraged their grand viziers to reform the Ottoman
army, but the only substantial move in the eighteenth century came during
the reign of Selim III (1789-1807), whose Nizam-Õ &HGLG (New Order)
Corps, trained and fashioned in the European style suggested a wider
concern tR LQLWLDWH D PRUH FRPSUHKHQVLYHUHIRUP 2VPDQD÷DR÷OX-93).
However, all of these attempts failed to produce radical ideological and
intellectual transformation that was needed. According to Weiker, Ottoman
bureaucrats were not able to bring about radical reform, despite regular
contact with their Western counterparts; after attaining high office they
grew “deeply committed to Ottoman values and not disposed to give up
fundamental bases of the Ottoman system” (Weiker 452). The first major
move towards modernization took place in the early nineteenth century,
when Mahmud II (1808-1839) forcibly disbanded the centuries-old
Janissary Corps and the Mehteran, the traditional Ottoman military band
which had always accompanied the Janissaries. This major rupture was
called Vaka-i Hayriye (The Auspicious Event). He replaced them with a
modernized army – Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammediye (Victorious
Mohammedan Soldiers) – and a military band fashioned in Western style,
the Muzikay-i Humayun (Imperial Band), under the direction of Giuseppe
Donizetti (Kutlay Baydar 285). In his efforts to create a new Ottoman
LGHQWLW\EDVHGRQZHVWHUQPRGHOV6XOWDQ$EGOPHFLGLQWURGXFHGWKHILUVW
official “national” anthem of the Empire in 1844; the Mecidiye March had
originally been composed by Donizetti in 1839 to be used as a royal
DQWKHP IRU $EGOPHFLG 7KLV VHHPHG OLNH D SURJUHVVLYH PRYH PRVW
European territories that were evolving into nation-states and/or
constitutional monarchies were legitimizing and popularizing their new
political identities by endorsing national symbols, including anthems.
Another national symbol, the first official flag of the Ottoman Empire,
which is almost identical to the flag of the Republic of Turkey, was also
adopted in 1844. Throughout the rest of the century, successive rulers
DGRSWHG GLIIHUHQW V\PEROV RI QDWLRQDO XQLW\ 6XOWDQ $EGOD]L] -
$EGOPHFLG¶V EURWKHU DQG VXFFHVVRU FRQWLQXHG WKH UHIRUPV LQ
public life, but the most noticeable one was the Tâbiyyet-i Osmaniyye
Kanunnamesi (Ottoman Nationality Law) of 1869, which was
complementary to previous efforts to create a new Ottoman national
identity as it introduced a new idea of citizenship based on a secular
FRQFHSWLQVWHDGRIUHOLJLRQ4DILVKHK$EGOD]L]ZDVDQDGPLUHURIWKH
West and had visited Britain and France. However, his reluctance to
introduce a constitutional system resulted in his abdication. His insincerity
about real reform was also reflected in the symbolic practices of the state.
While the official flag of the Empire remained the same, the official
national anthem was replaced by the Aziziye March, composed by Callisto
*XDWHOOL6LPLODUO\0XUDG9ZKRZDVHQWKURQHGDIWHUKLVXQFOH$EGOD]L]
with the expectation that he would adopt a constitution, was deposed by
his ministers only 93 days after his succession. Had he stayed in power
longer, there would most probably be a Muradiye March on the list of
Ottoman anthems, but during his short reign, the Aziziye March was used
DV WKH QDWLRQDO DQWKHP 'XULQJ $EGOKDPLG ,,¶V UHLJQ 1876-1909), this
was superseded by the Hamidiye March, composed by Necip Pasha. These
moves were symbolic of a wider insecurity in the Ottoman Empire about
the value of westernization, as Smith explains:
The last seventy years of Ottoman rule witnessed successive attempts to

reform the basis of the empire (Tanzimat), including a resort to
“Ottomanism” through equality and citizenship for all subjects and to
‘Islamism’ under Abdul Hamid, which promoted the welfare of the Islamic
inhabitants without abolishing citizenship for all. But the modernizing
attempts by an aristocratic Islamic elite failed amid the break-up of first the
Christian and then the Muslim parts of the empire. (103)
8QGHU SUHVVXUH IURP WKH PDMRU (XURSHDQSRZHUV 6XOWDQ$EGOKDPLG

II declared the Kanun-i Esasi (the Basic Law) as the first constitution and
a bicameral parliament, namely the Meclis-i Mebusan, was also
established, holding its first meeting on 19 March 1877. Yet these moves
towards power-VKDULQJ ZHUH RQO\ FRVPHWLF DV 2UWD\OÕ H[Slains, the
members of the parliament who were representing the people of their cities
at the Meclis-i Mebusan were not elected by the people but simply
DSSRLQWHG E\ WKH LPSHULDO JRYHUQRUV 2UWD\OÕ %DWÕOÕODúPD 50). The
constitution was likewise weak as it recognized a monarchy with authority
but no responsibility and accountability (%DWÕOÕODúPD 56). A little more
than a year after the declaration of the constitution, the parliament was
GLVVROYHGE\$EGOKDPLGDQGWKHUHIROORZHGDUHWXUQWRDEVROXWLVWUXOH a
regime characterized by oppression, censorship and espionage. This is in
line with Cerulo’s argument that, since events leading to fragmentation
such as independence movements weaken domestic control in
sociopolitical systems, national anthems set in such contexts display
features of authoritarianism to “heighten domestic control”
(“Sociopolitical Control” 82), which definitely was the case for the
Hamidiye March.
The next national anthem to be created was the 5HúDGL\H March (1909-
1918) composed by Italo 6HOYHOOLPDUNLQJWKHDFFHVVLRQRI$EGOPHFLG¶V
44 Chapter Four
VRQ0HKPHG5HúDGDVWKHQHZ6XOWDQ&RPLQJWRWKHWKURQHDWDJHRI
DIWHUDOLIHRIFRQILQHPHQWLQWKH2WWRPDQSDODFH0HKPHG5HúDGKDGQR
real political experience and power; he was dominated by strong figures
from the øWWLKDWYH7HUDNNL&HPL\HWL (Committee of Union and Progress),
the strongest political party in the parliament representing the Young Turks
– the Ottoman intelligentsia who were “trained as bureaucrats, but spent
the most of the Tanzimat period either in exile because they were too
radical for the sultan,” and constantly propagandized for reform and “kept
a spark lighted in the despotic period after 1877” (Weiker 454-455). We
might assume with justification that the creation of a new anthem most
probably had more to do with the Young Turks’ willingness to erase
$EGOKDPLG¶VQDPHIURPRIILFLDOPHPRU\WKDQZLWK5HúDG¶VDVVHUWLRQRI
imperial authority. When the last Ottoman Sultan, namely, Mehmed
Vahdettin (1918-1922) succeeded to the throne, the First World War had
already reached a point at which the survival of the Ottoman Empire
looked impossible. In other words, Vahdettin had no power to assert his
person as the strong center and source of the state’s sovereignty. During
his reign the Mahmudiye March, the first ever official ‘royal’ anthem of
the Ottoman Empire, was used as the last national anthem, signifying that
the history of the Empire had come full circle. The national anthem of the
Republic of Turkey, øVWLNODO0DUúÕ (Independence March), embodying the
nation’s struggle for and love of independence, was officially adopted by
the Grand National Assembly in 1921 and its current musical composition
was adopted in 1930. Ever since, it has become the way Turkish people
“sing [themselves] together,” to refer once more to Kelen and Pavkovic’s
definition (443).
It is clear that the Ottoman sultans of the nineteenth century were not
really eager to share their absolute authority with a parliament as Weiker
explains:
Though Mahmud vacillated in KLV]HDOIRUUHIRUPDQG6XOWDQV$EGOPHMLG

(1839- DQG $EGOD]L] -1876) were sometimes reformist,
sometimes conservative, and often capricious, attempts at reform continued
ZLWK IHZ LQWHUUXSWLRQV XQWLO $EGOKDPLG ,, HQGHG WKHP LQ E\
suspending the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 and reverting to despotic
rule. (454)
At the same time the Ottoman sultans knew that yielding to Western
pressure for political reform in the direction of constitutionalism was the
only way they could ensure the survival of the monarchy. By
commissioning supposedly national anthems, they hoped to show how this
process was working successfully; but in truth this process of adaptation
only revealed how national values assumed less importance than

individual values as the source and center of state sovereignty.
Furthermore, none of these anthems had lyrics, but were only musical
representations of the monarchs. Even though they may be pleasant and
nostalgic to listen to today, in the nineteenth century they most probably
meant nothing except a further example of absolute authority.
In her empirical research on the musical structures of 154 national
anthems composed in the western musical tradition, Cerulo investigates
the relationship between musical structure and sociopolitical control.
National symbols originated from “a long tradition in which groups or
ruling houses used banners, crests, fanfares, etc. as a form of
announcement and identification,” while “the phenomenon of nations
adopting a single set of symbols” began in the nineteenth century
(“Sociopoitical Control” 77). In the light of this observation, the Ottoman
practice of using anthems as late as the nineteenth century reflected a
primitive form of such practices, as the anthems celebrated individual
monarchs rather than the societies they ruled. Cerulo argues that “in
modernizing nations, leaders must convince a heterogeneous citizenry that
they are now a part of a larger, more cohesive unit – one that transcends
old tribal, group, or regional loyalties” (“Symbols” 249). Even though a
process of modernization seemed to be underway in the Ottoman state in
the nineteenth century, the functions of national anthems remained very
much pre-modern, and this was most probably because the Ottoman
sultans refused to transfer sovereignty to the people. Cerulo proposes two
categories of musical codes, “basic” and “embellished” (“Sociopolitical
Control” 79), and their association with high and low levels of
sociopolitical control, as exerted by the political élites which legitimize
national anthems. According to the findings:
Basic musical codes are characterized as highly stable, constant and fixed.
Composers achieve stability by limiting the available range of musical
motion. In moving from one point to another, the composer chooses the
most direct route. To create constancy, the composer uses repetition to
enhance predictability, refraining from variation and ornamentation of
simple musical patterns (“Sociopolitical Control” 79).
Most of the time, national anthems adopted during periods of high

level sociopolitical control, or in strictly authoritarian regimes, would
involve basic musical codes (Cerulo, “Sociopolitical Control” 80-84).
With their directness, repetition and predictability, Ottoman anthems offer
a good example of this; such structural features reveal the extent to which
Ottoman sultans resisted the notion of a constitution at a time when their
46 Chapter Four
empire was collapsing around them. For purposes of comparison, among

the 154 anthems, “God Save the King/ Queen” was found to be the most
basic anthem in Cerulo’s study (“Sociopolitical Control” 90); this is a
good example of revealing the “international control” Britain enjoyed as
an imperial power (82). Among the sample group, the øVWLNODO0DUúÕ is the
one with the second most embellished musical codes (91), suggesting
weaker sociopolitical control, less authoritarianism, greater flexibility, and
more individualized interpretation (81). Drawing on the criteria employed
in Cerulo’s study, the øVWLNODO0DUúÕ is the second most successful musical
expression of a modern nation-state and all of the values attached to that
notion.
In conclusion, the Ottoman adaptation of the nineteenth-century
European practice of using national anthems to legitimize the sovereignty
of states and to forge national identities seems to have consciously
distorted the main function of national anthems. Appropriating – rather
than adapting – Western practice as exemplified in the British national
anthem “God Save the King/Queen,” in order to serve the individual
monarch as the sole source and center of the state, Ottoman royal and
national anthems seem to have been instruments by which successive
rulers resisted the notion of constitutionalism in their imperial realm.
Ottoman anthems represented primitive forms of symbolic
communication; had alienating effects and even humiliating implications;
structurally promoted strict authoritarianism and high level of
sociopolitical control; and were far from creating and maintaining unison
in the society that they claimed to represent. While there may be elements
in the Ottoman past from which the modern Republic of Turkey can find
inspiration, this is certainly not the case with royal or national anthems. An
over-reliance on such melodies might create a situation in which the
Turkish republic will have to “reinvent the Turkish saddle” (Landry 66) for
the second time.
Works Cited
$NÕOOÕ6LQDQ Review of Kumkum Chatterjee and Clement Hawes (eds.),
Multiple Gazes in Early Modern Encounters. Lewisburg, Bucknell UP,
2008. Hacettepe University Journal of British Literature and Culture
16 (2009): 93-101. Print.
—. “Western Style Royal/National Anthems of the Ottoman Empire:
Tracing Resistance to Constitutional Monarchy.” Hacettepe
hQLYHUVLWHVL 7UNL\DW $UDúWÕUPDODUÕ Dergisi 16 (Spring 2012): 7-22.
Print.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin
and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso, 2006. Print.
Bogdanor, Vernon. The Monarchy and the Constitution. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1995. Print.
Burnaby, Frederick. On Horseback through Asia Minor. 1877. Ed. Peter
Hopkirk. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. Print.
Cannon, John, and Ralph Griffiths. The Oxford Illustrated History of the
British Monarchy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988. Print.
Cerulo, Karen A. “Sociopolitical Control and the Structure of National
Symbols: An Empirical Analysis of National Anthems.” Social Forces
68.1 (1989): 76-99. Ebscohost. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
—. “Symbols and the World System: National Anthems and Flags.”
Sociological Forum 8.2 (1993): 243-270. Ebscohost. Web. 20 Mar.
2012.
Chatterjee, Kumkum, and Clement Hawes, eds. Europe Observed:
Multiple Gazes in Early Modern Encounters. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell
UP, 2008. Print.
De Kay, James E. Sketches of Turkey in 1831 and 1832. New York: J. & J.
Harper. 1833. The Internet Archive. Web. 15 Aug. 2011.
Fetih 1453 'LU )DUXN$NVR\ 3HUI 'HYULP (YLQ øEUDKLP dHOLNNRO DQG
Dilek Serbest. Aksoy Film, 2012. Film.
“Fetih 1453.” The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print.
Kelen, Christopher, and Aleksandar Pavkovic. “Resurrection: A Tale of
Two Anthems Sung by Serbs.” Nations and Nationalism 16.3 (2010):
442-461. Ebscohost. Web. 15 Aug. 2011.
Kolstø, Pål. “National Symbols as Signs of Unity and Division.” Ethnic
and Racial Studies 29.4 (2006): 676-701. Taylor and Francis Online.
Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
48 Chapter Four
.XWOD\ %D\GDU (YUHQ ³2VPDQOÕGD *|UHYOL øNL øWDO\DQ 0]LV\HQ

Giuseppe Donizetti ve Callisto Guatelli.” Zeitschrift für die Welt der
Türken 2.1 (2010): 283-293. Web. 15 Aug. 2011.
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Culture. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 2008. Print.
Maclean, Gerald. Looking East: English Writing and the Ottoman Empire
Before 1800. London and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Print.
2UWD\OÕøOEHU%DWÕOÕODúPD<ROXQGDøVWDQEXO0HUNH].LWDSODU3ULQW
—. ³<HQL2VPDQOÕFÕOÕN´Milliyet, 26 Jun. 2011. Web. 15 Aug. 2011.
2VPDQD÷DR÷OX&LKDQ7DQ]LPDW'|QHPLøWLEDUÕ\OD2VPDQOÕ7kELL\\HWLQLQ
9DWDQGDúOÕ÷ÕQÕQ*HOLúLPLøVWDQEXO/HJDO<D\ÕQFÕOÕN3ULQW
Qafisheh, Mutaz M. The International Law Foundations of Palestinian
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YH øúOHYOHUL´ 6HOoXN hQLYHUVLWHVL 7UNL\DW $UDúWÕUPDODUÕ 'HUJLVL 17
(2005): 383-393. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
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Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ADAPTATION OF THE SELF:

BYRON’S ORIENTAL SELF-FASHIONING
HIMMET UMUNÇ
Thomas Moore (1779-1852), Lord Byron’s associate and literary

executor who edited and published with biographical notes Byron’s letters
and journals in two volumes in 1830 under the title The Life, Letters and
Journals of Lord Byron, relates the following anecdote about Byron as a
fourteen-year-old Harrow schoolboy:
In the autumn of 1802, [Byron] passed a short time with his mother at
Bath, and entered, rather prematurely, into some of the gaities of the place.
At a masquerade given by Lady Riddel, he appeared in the character of a
Turkish boy, – a sort of anticipation, both in beauty and costume, of his
own young Selim, in ‘The Bride [of Abydos]’ (26).
Moore adds that at the masquerade Byron wore a turban with a

“diamond crescent” on it (26). One can imagine that the turban with its
diamond crescent must have been the most striking part of Byron’s
Ottoman costume, since his appearance in this fashion must have
reminded the audience not only of the world of The Arabian Nights with
its Islamic culture and exoticism, but also of the Ottoman sultans and
princes who were usually depicted in European art with their richly-
jeweled turbans.
In fact, one of Byron’s youthful reveries was to explore and experience
the oriental ways of life (which had interested him ever since his early
childhood), ranging from The Arabian Nights and Persian poetry to travel
and historiographical writings. Drawing upon Byron’s oriental
constructions in parts of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan and other
romances, this chapter will explore his vision of the Orient, and discuss
the ways in which in his illusions and emulations, he tried to adapt for
himself a kind of oriental self-fashioning.
50 Chapter Five
As regards the term “self-fashioning,” it would be useful at this point

to provide a theoretical framework based on Stephen Greenblatt’s model.
Although Greenblatt discusses the term within the social and cultural
context of sixteenth-century England, his definition is also relevant to our
discussion of Byron’s oriental self-fashioning. For Greenblatt, in its
cultural sense, the term “fashion” refers to “a way of designating the
forming of a self” (2). In other words, it means “a sense of personal order,
a characteristic mode of address to the world, a structure of bounded
desires [...] [a] deliberate shaping in the formation and expression of
identity” (Greenblatt 1). “Fashioning” can be understood as the shaping of
“a distinctive personality, a characteristic address to the world, a consistent
mode of perceiving and behaving” (Greenblatt 2). Greenblatt further
argues that self-fashioning becomes “[the subject’s] attempt to fashion
other selves” (3) by assuming new roles and social status in a different
cultural, political, or moral setting. This is also true of Byron; through his
reveries, mimicries and emulations of oriental ways of life, he experienced
a process of oriental self-fashioning that represents a search for self-
fulfillment and identity, as well as promising adventure and opportunities
for political and ideological achievement. As described by the anonymous
R.N. in The London Magazine of October 1824, for his contemporaries
Byron was a man of action, with “extraordinary habits, feelings, and
opinions” (337). This kaleidoscopic character of his had been in the
making in his early life, as one can infer from Moore’s portrayal of him as
a schoolboy:
He [Byron] was a lively, warm-hearted, and high-spirited boy – passionate

and resentful, but affectionate and companionable with his school-fellows
– to a remarkable degree venturous and fearless (7).
Byron developed into an adventurous and enterprising adult in pursuit

of the romanticism that would be fulfilled through oriental self-fashioning
and adaptation. Naji B. Ouejian claims that Byron “was the only
Englishman who truly experienced the Orient by assimilating himself into
the culture” (18), and further suggests that “to Byron the East was a kind
of sanctuary in which he would confess his innermost self and find relief
and freedom to be himself again” (47).
The origins of Byron’s oriental romanticism may be traced back to his
childhood. He had learned to read fluently by the time he was five years
old (Eisler 22), and was particularly attracted to history. He wrote later in
his journal “My Dictionary:” “the moment I could read – my grand
passion was history” (qtd. Moore 6). While attending grammar school as a
boy of eight or nine (apparently much influenced by his mother’s fondness
The Adaptation of the Self: Byron’s Oriental Self-Fashioning 51
for reading), he constantly read books of history and fiction, including

Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Tobias Smollett’s Roderick Random and Sir
Walter Scott’s romantic novels (Eisler 26). He recalled later on that he had
been an avid reader of “all travels or histories or books upon the East I
could meet with […] before I was ten years old” (qtd. Eisler 26). Other
texts in his childhood reading-list included The Arabian Nights, Richard
Knolles’ Turkish History (1701), and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s
Embassy Letters (1763). Knolles’ Turkish History was
one of the first books that gave me pleasure as a child; and I believe it had
much influence on my subsequent wishes to visit the Levant, and gave,
perhaps, the oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry (qtd. Eisler
26).
Byron’s oriental self-learning was further enhanced through his

classical education that began with private tutors (Moore 6, 15, Berry 155)
and continued at Harrow and Cambridge University, where he was granted
a Master’s degree in 1808.1 This aroused in him a growing sense of
philhellenism and a desire to visit Ottoman Greece (Marchand 120). In
later life he became involved more directly in Greek cultures, as he
participated in the country’s struggle for liberation from Ottoman rule; but
his beliefs were essentially inspired by romantic reveries about ancient
Greece and its historical legacy (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage II, 73-93).2
His romanticism was personal and literary, but was also underpinned by
what one may call his realpolitik approach to contemporary life. Marchand
has asserted that, “unlike other English travellers to Greece at the time,
from the first Byron’s interest was in ‘living Greece’ rather than in relics
of the past” (120-121). Marius Byron Raizis concurs: “Byronic
Philhellenism identified with the living Greece of actuality as well, and
not only with the Romantic idea of an ancient Greece that was no more”
(129). His role in the Greek revolt as a passionate and dedicated supporter
was not only a powerful manifestation of his philhellenism but also a
politically pragmatic demonstration of it.3
When Byron was twenty years old in 1808, he began to plan what he
called his “pilgrimage” to the Ottoman Orient. He charted out his possible
itinerary in a letter he wrote on 2 February 1808 to his friend James de
Bath:
1
For Byron’s Cambridge years, see Eisler 88-139.
2
The edition used for references to Byron’s poetical works is Jerome J. McCann’s
Clarendon edition of The Complete Poetical Works.
3
For a detailed account of Byron’s role in the Greek revolt, see Eisler 724-744; for
a critical study, see Thomas 147-152.
52 Chapter Five
In January 1809 I shall be twenty one & in the Spring of the same year
proceed abroad, not on the usual Tour, but a route of a more extensive
Description. What say you? Are you disposed for a view of the
Peloponnesus and a voyage through the Archipelago? I am merely in jest
with regard to you, but very serious with regard to my own Intention which
is fixed on the Pilgrimage, unless some political view or accident induce
me to postpone it (Complete Works VIII, 73-74).4
The plan was put into practice in July 1809, when Byron and his
entourage set out from Falmouth in south England aboard a packet boat
bound for Lisbon. Due to the Napoleonic Wars (which evidently made a
passage across the Continent extremely dangerous), Byron traveled via
3RUWXJDO VRXWKHUQ 6SDLQ DQG 0DOWD DQG RQ WR *UHHFH DQG øVWDQEXO
(Complete Works VIII, 98-9). When in Gibraltar, he wrote to his mother,
giving a full account of his journey to date (Complete Works VIII, 102-
105), and added a postscript to express both his reaction to the news of his
Newstead Abbey tenant Lord Grey de Ruthyn’s marriage,5 and also his
fantasy of an oriental marriage for himself:
So Lord G[rey de Ruthyn] is married to a rustic. Well done! If I wed, I will

bring home a Sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and reconcile
you to an Ottoman daughter-in-law, with a bushel of pearls not larger than
ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts (Complete Works VIII, 105).
Although “idle reverie [...] was his [Byron’s] custom” (Moore 27), this
dream of his metaphorically indicates his readiness for oriental adaptation.
As Ouejian has aptly observed:
[Byron’s] ability to turn with ease from one extreme to another, and his
adaptability to different conditions and situations [...] made him more than
a mere observer of the Orient. He lived with the orientals; he studied their
languages and caught the spirit of their culture; and he stayed long enough
to become a participant. Gifted with an observant eye and an inquisitive
mind, and highly sensitive to the rhythms of life in a foreign culture, [he]
was capable of becoming part of the East” (17-18).
During his visit to the Ottoman Orient, which lasted from the autumn
of 1809 to the early summer of 1811, Byron displayed a genuine interest in
4
For references to Byron’s letters and journals, the edition used is The Complete
Works, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
5
On Lord Grey de Ruthyn’s lease of Byron’s Newstead Abbey property, and his
relationship with Byron himself and Byron’s mother Catherine Byron, see Eisler
62 and 71-75.
the study of Turkish, Romaic and Armenian; he even attempted to write a

treatise on Armenian grammar and phonetics and make translations from
Armenian.6 For his oriental romances, he provided a number of Turkish
words and phrases, most of which were spelt phonetically.7 In the notes
appended to these romances, he makes explanations and comments about
Ottoman life and society.8 During what Giovanna Franci has called this
“the search for a phantasmagoric world, a visit to the realms of Beauty” in
the Ottoman Orient (171), Byron seriously and energetically tried to adapt
himself to the local culture by acquiring linguistic proficiency and
enhancing his cultural awareness so that he could fulfill his dreams of
eroticism, exoticism and adventure. This is often elaborated in his letters
he wrote from the Orient, which are full of intimate revelations about the
self, as well as his narratives or Turkish romances; we can sense multiple
formats of Byron’s oriental self-fashioning, ranging from his romantic
heroes Don Juan, Childe Harold, the Giaour and other romance heroes, to
his mimicry of the mythological lover and hero Leander, when he swam
on 3 May 1810 across the Hellespont.9 Especially in his Turkish romances
The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, and The Corsair and also in parts of
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan, containing Ottoman characters
and oriental settings10 he projects himself into oriental characters and
situations; he is either a lover like Selim in The Bride of Abydos; or a
warrior like Conrad in The Corsair; or, like Don Juan, moves about in an
RULHQWDOVHWWLQJVXFKDVWKH6XOWDQ¶VVHUDJOLRRUøVWDQEXOLWVHOIZKLFKLQKLV
6
For the texts of his Armenian grammar and phonetics as well as translations, see
his Complete Miscellaneous Prose, 64-67 and 67-76 respectively.
7
For instance, “bulbul” [bülbül], “giaour” [gavur], “chibouque” [oXEXN], “bey,”
“kislar aga” [NÕ]ODUD÷DVÕ], “divan,” “gúl” [gül], “bey oglou” [EH\R÷OX], “muezzin”
[müezzin], “Alla” or “Ollah” [Allah], “dervise” [GHUYLú], “tophaike” [tüfek],
“bairam” [bayram], “jerred” or “djerrid” [cirit], “ataghan” [\DWD÷DQ], “salam
aleikoum” [selam aleyküm], “aleikoum salam” [aleyküm selam], “sunbul”
[sünbül], “chiaus” [oDYXú], “calpac” [kalpak], “amaun” [aman], “affendi” [efendi],
and many other Turkish words and phrases.
8
For instance, see some of Byron’s Turkish notes and comments on The Giaour in
The Complete Poetical Works, III, 416: note 151; 417: notes 225, 251, 343 and
351; 418: notes 355, 357, 358, 449, 479 and 483; 420: notes 717, 723, 724, 743,
748, 750. Also for his Turkish notes and comments on The Bride of Abydos and
The Corsair, see his Complete Poetical Works, III, 436-442 and 448 respectively.
9
As regards Byron’s swim across the Hellespont, see his references to it in various
letters in The Complete Works, VIII, 114, 116, 118 , 119, 140, and 162.
10
For oriental descriptions, characters and scenes in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,
see The Complete Poetical Works, II, 55-66 and 79-81; for the same in Don Juan,
see The Complete Poetical Works, V, 41-156, and VI, 7-119.
54 Chapter Five
preface to Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage he calls “the capital of the East”

(Complete Poetical Works II, 3). Both culturally and psychologically he is
prepared to transform himself into a quasi-oriental self, as illustrated
through his attachment to Ali Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Albania and
Yanina. At Ali Pasha’s court in Tepaleen, which he visited in the late
autumn of 1809, he was received warmly with an extravaganza of oriental
show.11 As communicated in his letter of 12 November 1809 (which he
wrote to his mother from Prevesa after his return from Tepaleen), he was
soon able to adapt himself to the ways and manners of the oriental
environment that Ali Pasha’s court represented; moreover, while Ali Pasha
treated him as an adopted son, he in return regarded him as if he, Ali
Pasha, were his adopted father:
He received me standing, a wonderful compliment from a Mussulman, and

made me sit down on his right hand [...] He said he was certain I was a
man of birth, because I had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands,
and expressed himself pleased with my appearance and garb. He told me to
consider him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me
as his son. Indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and
sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day. He begged me
to visit him often, and at night, when he was at leisure. I then, after coffee
and pipes, retired for the first time. [...] To me he was, indeed, a father,
giving me letters, guards, and every possible accommodation (Complete
Works VIII, 108-9).
Indeed, this cultural adaptation to an oriental way of life that Byron

experienced at Ali Pasha’s court must have inspired the painter Thomas
Phillips, who, about 1835, depicted Byron in an Albanian costume, a direct
evocation of the poet’s oriental self-fashioning.
After his return in the summer of 1811 from the journey to Greece and
Turkey, Byron grew extremely nostalgic about the Ottoman Orient and
began to make plans to return. However, the plague that broke out in
Turkey in 1813 prevented him from doing so (Complete Works IX, 195).
In the meantime, he continued to be obsessed with his reveries of oriental
self-fashioning; for instance, in his letter to Lady Melbourne, dated 18
March 1813, he jestingly described how he would adapt himself to a
Turkish appearance:
As soon as I get me to the country [Turkey], I shall cherish once more my

dear mustachios — with whom I parted in tears — and trust they will now
11
For a detailed description of his reception by Ali Pasha, see Complete Works,
VIII, 107-108.
have the good manners to grow blacker than they did formerly, and assume
the true Ottoman twist, of which your Hussars are deplorably ignorant (IX,
152).
Moreover, one of the oriental pleasures that he yearns for is the smoking
of the hookah “with the rose-leaf mixed with the milder herb of the
Levant” (IX, 275); although he also likes “Havannah” cigars, they are not
“so pleasant as a hookah or chiboque” because “the Turkish tobacco is
mild” (IX, 292).
Ever since his early childhood, Byron displayed a strong yearning to
see the Orient and fulfill his reveries of it. So he always looked for an
opportunity to shape an oriental identity for himself, which he projected
into his oriental writings and relations throughout his life. In this regard,
he may be described as a de-anglicized oriental self in the making but for
his early death in 1824 in Greece. That term “de-anglicizing” might be
considered problematic insofar that it implies a willful desire to shed one’s
Western upbringing and adopt oriental mores – an opportunistic pattern of
reverse mimicry borne out of a desire to have access to power in the
region. On the other hand this kind of strategy can be viewed more
charitably as a desire on Byron’s part to find alternative modes of living
based on a fusion of his western intelligence and what he perceived as a
more attractive existence in the Orient. Like Kipling, Byron’s desire to
adapt himself to native ways reflected a real affection and sense of
excitement about nonwestern cultures – in stark contrast, for instance, to
Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899).
56 Chapter Five
Works Cited
Berry, Francis. “Byron and Greece: From Harrow to Missolonghi.” Lord
Byron: Byronism, Liberalism, Philhellenism. Ed. M Byron Raizis.
Proceedings of the 14th International Byron Symposium, 6-8 Jul. 1987.
Athens: n.p, 1988. 155-64. Print.
Byron, George Gordon, 6th Baron. Complete Works. 13 vols. Newcastle
upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. Print.
—. The Complete Poetical Works. Ed. Jerome J. McCann. 7 vols. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1980-1993. Print.
—. The Complete Miscellaneous Prose. Ed. Andrew Nicholson. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991. Print.
Eisler, Benita. Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1999. Print.
Franci, Giovanna. “Byron’s Pilgrimage through Greece: Between Classical
Ruins and Turkish Masquerade.” Lord Byron: Byronism, Liberalism,
Philhellenism. Ed. M. Byron Raizis. Proceedings of the 14th
International Byron Symposium, 6-8 July 1987. Athens: n.p, 1988.
165-76. Print.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to
Shakespeare. 1980. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P. 2005. Print.
Marchand, Leslie A. “The Development of Byron’s Philhellenism.” Lord
Byron: Byronism, Liberalism, Philhellenism. Ed. M Byron Raizis.
Proceedings of the 14th International Byron Symposium, 6-8 July
1987. Athens: n.p, 1988. 120-6. Print.
Moore, Thomas. The Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. 1830.
London: John Murray, 1932. Print.
Ouejian, Naji B. A Compendium of Eastern Elements in Byron’s Oriental
Tales. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. Print.
R.N. “Personal Character of Lord Byron.” The London Magazine X
(October 1824): 337-47. Print.
Raizis, Marius Byron. “Aspects of Byronic Philhellenism.” Lord Byron:
Byronism, Liberalism, Philhellenism. Ed. M Byron Raizis. Proceedings
of the 14th International Byron Symposium, 6-8 July 1987. Athens:
n.p, 1988. 127-42. Print.
Thomas, Gordon K. “Byron as Philhellene: Artist or Escapist?” Lord
Byron: Byronism, Liberalism, Philhellenism. Ed. M. Byron Raizis.
Proceedings of the 14th International Byron Symposium, 6-8 July
1987. Athens: n.p, 1988. 143-54. Print.
CHAPTER SIX
ADAPTING THE EAST

INTO WESTERN PARADIGMS:
ROBERT IRWIN’S ARABIAN NIGHTMARE
DEFNE ERSIN TUTAN
In many senses, Robert Irwin’s Arabian Nightmare (1983) reads like

an epic, a medieval story with numerous characters involved and lands
visited. At times, it echoes parts of a romance with its duels. What is
perhaps more apparent is its rewriting of The Thousand and One Nights, a
collection of multiple stories within one single frame story. One could
even argue the novel to lie in the strand of magic realism, with its
juxtaposition of the magical and the realistic. As such, the novel, at least,
invites multi-layered, fruitful readings. Of all these possible
interpretations, however, the most obvious and representative is the one of
postmodern historiographic metafiction, for the novel’s blurring of the
distinctions across multiple genres and literary traditions is splendid. As a
postmodern novel, the Arabian Nightmare is not merely intertextual,
fragmented, self-conscious and self-reflexive, full of digressions and
stories within stories, but also elusive, denying the reader a meaningful
comprehension. Nevertheless, more significant than its postmodern
literary framework is the cultural and historical discourse the Arabian
Nightmare embarks upon. By deliberately confusing hi/stories, Irwin
adapts history into the novel, thereby questioning the process through
which histories are textualized. Set in the Cairo of the late 1480s, Arabian
Nightmare demonstrates a Westerner’s depiction of the East. As the novel
presents itself as a “guidebook” (11), it should then be considered how it
‘guides’ its readers into/throughout the East. In the world of the novel,
where “Cairo’s freaks” (130) parade in multiplicity, the East is mystified,
if not exoticized. This is strengthened by illustrations, scattered throughout
the book, which belong to David Roberts, a Scottish artist from the late
18th and early 19th centuries. Irwin personally believes that “Roberts’s
58 Chapter Six
pictures of Cairo are remarkable for their detail and accuracy,” and that
“they constitute an unparalleled pictorial record of early 19th century
Cairo,” a city he believes to have “changed very little since the 15th
century” (281).
One is, then, inevitably tempted to ask whether the novel constitutes a
historical fantasy from an overtly biased perspective. Is the novel an
Eighties’ adaptation of Orientalism? Is it a rewriting of a medieval and
cultural discourse of the East, and of the “Other”? And if yes, what is the
ideological pretext behind the construction of such a version of history?
The fact that it is only the two Englishmen, Vale and Balian, among an
unbelievably crowded set of characters, who survive until the end of the
narrative, while all others are eliminated seems to provide an answer to
some of these questions. However, if postmodernism aims to subvert
certain discourses from within those discourses, it might be argued that
Irwin fails in such a subversion, only to succeed in reinforcing the
discourse he sets out to subvert. In other words, the conventional binary
opposites of the West and the East, which surface throughout the novel in
the form of Christianity versus Islam, and the Mamluks versus the
Ottomans, are reinforced rather than deconstructed. Is the East, thus,
associated with a “nightmare,” as opposed to all the possible “dreams” the
West has to offer? In an era when xenophobia seems to be ever more on
the rise, and the East is further Orientalized, Robert Irwin’s Arabian
Nightmare deserves a more critical scrutiny as a form of ideological
adaptation.
When indulging in the novel, the reader is constantly played with and
tricked, setting out to explore the “Arabian nightmare,” which is
stimulated by thinking about it and which, ironically, cannot be
remembered when awake. When Balian, one of the two significant English
characters who is introduced as the hero with a double identity, that of a
pilgrim and a spy, asks Michael Vale, the second Englishman who is also
doubted to be a spy, about the nightmare, Vale remarks:
The Arabian nightmare is obscene and terrible, monotonous and yet

horrific. It comes to its victims every night, yet one of its properties is that
it is never remembered in the morning. It is therefore the experiencing of
infinite pain without the consciousness that one is doing so. Night after
night of apparently endless torment and then in the morning the victim
rises and goes about his daily business as if nothing had ever happened,
and he looks forward to a good night’s sleep at the end of a hard day’s
work. It is pure suffering, suffering that does not ennoble or teach,
pointless suffering that changes nothing (34).
Adapting the East into Western Paradigms 59
Interestingly, the victim gets marked in a kind of invisible way and

people can talk behind his back. Such is Balian’s case, as he constantly
wakes up with blood jetting out of his nostrils and not even knowing when
it was that he fell asleep. As all this is set in the late 1480s Cairo, Vale
takes Balian to the House of Sleep, to be cured by the Father of Cats
(instead of a doctor). Initiated as such, this search for the cure, as well as
the meaning, of the nightmare transforms into an unveiling of the story-
telling process, which is, in turn, likened to the history-writing process.
Set in disguise until the third chapter, the narrator introduces himself as
Yoll – the storyteller, who is dictating his stories, a portion a night, in the
form of The Thousand and One Nights, to Bulbul – the calligrapher. It is
only in chapter twenty that it is declared: “Yoll is not dictating this story.
Yoll is dead. What is more, Yoll never was dictating the story” (261).
Apparently, after Yoll’s death Bulbul has put together his stories and
named it One Thousand Nights and One Night (277). Nevertheless Yoll
assumes authority for much of the novel as he claims to be telling the
truth:
We all know the places and the people. It is a good story. It is easy for
somebody like myself, who estimates information at its true value, to
reconstruct this tale from a hundred sources in the city. I am Yoll, the only
story-teller in Cairo who makes a living from telling true stories.
Sometimes people pay me to tell their story in public places, perhaps in the
hope that it may edify the crowds or that it may bring luster on the family
name. At other times, I select an individual and honor him or ruin him by
telling his story. […] Sometimes I am paid not to tell the story. […] [A]
good storyteller strives to give his stories some shape, even if they are true
ones (48).
This declaration itself is enough to question the truth of the story or

history being constructed in a purely subjective manner throughout the
novel. However, as Linda Hutcheon argues, in A Poetics of
Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction:
historiographic metafiction refutes the natural or common-sense methods

of distinguishing between historical fact and fiction. It refuses the view that
only history has a truth claim, both by questioning the ground of that claim
in historiography and by asserting that both history and fiction are
discourses, human constructs, signifying systems, and both derive their
major claim to truth from that identity (93).
Hence it can be argued that the narrator, whether it is taken to be Yoll or

Irwin himself, has as much authority as anyone else in the writing and
60 Chapter Six
shaping of history. After all, “narrative representation – story-telling – is a

historical and political act” (Hutcheon, Politics 50-51).
The main plot of the Arabian Nightmare revolves around a travelling
group, which joined together by chance for safety and protection on their
way from Alexandria to Cairo but got stuck there for three days as no visas
are granted due to the Sultan’s party for his son’s circumcision. The group
comprises a dozen Venetian merchants, a painter sent as a compliment to
the Sultan, a German engineer looking for a job, a couple of Armenian
merchants, a delegation of Anatolian Turks, a Syrian priest, French and
Italian pilgrims and the two Englishmen. This is by no means a full list of
the characters parading in the novel, as the catalogue is as numerous as the
stories being fused. What strikes the reader as significant is that of all
these characters it is only the Englishmen who survive this quest, this
challenge against the nightmare of the East. As such, the cultural/historical
discourse successfully hidden in between the lines still demonstrates a
Westerner’s depiction of the East. If nothing else, postmodernism has
foregrounded “the way we talk and write within certain social, historical,
and institutional (thus political and economic) frameworks,” creating an
awareness of different discourses (Hutcheon, Poetics 184). To illustrate,
right out of the first paragraph, “the art of reading is not widespread in
these parts” – that is, in the East, and “a narrative of the manners and
customs of some exotic people is particularly suitable for such a purpose”
– that is, putting the reader to sleep (Irwin 11). The reason the novel
presents itself as a “guidebook” (11) is that in Cairo, in the words of the
narrator, “the stranger needs a guide, for, though the city’s principal
monuments are obvious to the eye, its diversions are transitory and less
easy to find, and though the inhabitants may welcome the foreigner with a
smile, beware, for they are all charlatans and liars. They will cheat you if
they can.” (11).
Moreover, Cairo is presented as the place “from out of which the
armies of Mohamedanism ride out to bring pestilence and the sword to
Christian lands,” and from where “army of assassins, heretics and
poisoners” are directed (12). Elsewhere, Cairo is depicted as “a world of
stench and darkness” with “almost visible clouds of odor, compounded of
urine, spices and rotting straw” (13). It is said to be “the land of illusion
and illusionism, the kingdom of the greedy palm and shifty eye” (18).
Additionally, it is claimed that “the greater part of the population of Cairo
did not work but begged or resigned itself to dying slowly” (44). Under
these circumstances, Yoll believes it to be his responsibility to narrate the
hi/story of Cairo since “these poor folk have no voice. They have no
dreams, they sit like rag dolls beside their merchandise, but I am becoming
their voice and I shall create their dreams for them” (49-50). Ironically, the
narrator seems to echo, at this point, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theory
of the problem of representation and under-representation of the colonized
subjects. This idea of the colonized being speechless, being denied a right
to speak, corresponds to what Spivak suggests by the subaltern being
unable to speak for itself. In her article “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” she
addresses this problem, although she focuses on colonized women as the
doubly-silenced subaltern, silenced by both colonialism and patriarchy. In
her view, it is essential to uncover an alternative history to that of the
colonizers because, having been deprived of their freedom of speech, of
representing themselves, the colonized people have long been spoken for
by the colonizers. Thus Spivak posits that “to ignore the subaltern today is
[...] to continue the imperialist project” (94). It is in line with this
perspective that Arabian Nightmare fails in its potential subversion of the
Orientalist discourse, as the voice in the novel belongs to a Westerner
rather than an Easterner. In other words, having, thus, taken on the
responsibility, Robert Irwin narrates the story of “the eastern lands” where
“the heat and idleness breed among the inhabitants leisured and lethal
fantasies” (71). As such, with its numerous “freaks,” like the vertically-
half man, she-wolf, ape-boy, funambulist, dwarfs and soothsayers, Cairo is
very clearly Orientalized.
To complicate the matter further, as Edward Said argues in
Orientalism, the ‘Orient’ was never anything other than an “idea,” “a
creation with no corresponding reality” for the Westerners (5). Therefore
the relationship between the Occident and Orient is a relationship of

power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony [...] The
Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be
“Oriental” in all those ways considered common-place by an average
nineteenth-century European, but also because it could be – that is,
submitted to being – made Oriental (Said 5-6).
As the Orient was never more than an idea which could be easily crushed
under hegemonic dominance, and was actually deliberately Orientalized
for this purpose, the colonized peoples have been metaphorically crushed,
too, under the hegemony of Eurocentric history. In other words, for the
purposes of hegemony, these people have been denied a history of their
own, and hence a language of their own.
When analyzed in this fashion, Arabian Nightmare should be regarded
as successful only for its adaptation of postmodern literary devices, for its
demonstration of the subjective, story-telling-like nature of history, for its
practice-based argument over the blurring of the distinction between that
62 Chapter Six
which is fictional and historical. Yet it is a total failure for re-

writing/adapting the Orientalist discourse, thereby rendering it ever more
alive as of the 1980s. In other words, far from dissolving a colonialist
discourse, the novel adapts it in-between its lines. Perhaps, “the real world
has been entering into competition with the storyteller” (Irwin 56) by more
ideological means than literary.
Works Cited
Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction.
London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.
—. The Politics of Postmodernism. London and New York: Routledge,
1993. Print.
Irwin, Robert. Arabian Nightmare. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983.
Print.
Said, Edward. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. 1978.
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1995. Print.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Colonial
Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. Eds. Patrick Williams
and Laura Chrisman. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. 66-111. Print.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ADAPTATION OR SOMETHING LIKE IT:

KAREL REISZ’S THE GAMBLER (1974)
JOYCE GOGGIN
Perhaps no other area of film studies has seemed more hackneyed, or

been given less truly critical attention than the adaptation of literary texts
for the screen. As writers from André Bazin to Kamilla Elliott always
point out, film began pillaging literary and not-so-literary canons from the
moment the notion of feature-length entertainment presented itself on the
horizon of modernity. Maybe then, it is the seeming naturalness and wide
proliferation of literary adaptations that accounts for the somewhat
surprising paucity of scholarship on the topic.1 One might also conjecture
that the study of film adaptation got off to something of a bad start due to
its colonization by literature departments, where filmed adaptations are
often used as a supplement to the privileged “original” text, and as a
means of insuring that learners have some idea of what happened in the
book. Naremore, for example, refers to adaptation as “one of the most
jejune areas of scholarly writing about the cinema,” citing Robert B. Ray’s
institutional argument that “film and literature was without a paradigm”
and that it therefore simply “inherited the assumptions of the dominant
New Criticism” prevalent in university literature programs in the 1960s,
when adaptation was first becoming a legitimate area of academic interest
(Naremore 1, Ray 44, 45).
1
This comment needs some qualification. Since I first wrote this article as a
conference paper in 2004, the field of adaptation studies has grown considerably
and now includes two high-quality, regularly-published journals (Adaptation: The
Journal of Literature on Screen Studies and the Journal of Adaptation in Film &
Performance). Likewise, both Linda Hutcheon (A Theory of Adaptation) and Julie
Sanders (Adaptation and Appropriation: The New Critical Idiom) have published
major books on the topic and the field continues to expand with regular
conferences and research publications.
Adaptation or Something Like It: Karel Reisz’s The Gambler (1974) 65
Those who follow this line of reasoning generally argue that literary
studies have both limited the number of possible approaches to cinematic
adaptation, and venerated the book as the stable textual antecedent and the
film’s unquestionable source. The result is criticism that deals with
adaptation more or less exclusively in relation to literature, as some sort of
secondary phenomenon or craft. In such versions of the story, the text then
serves as a yardstick from which adaptations are judged on the criteria of
fidelity and deviance. Yet whatever explanation one chooses to accept as
to where adaptation studies may have gone wrong, the point remains that,
in spite of rich resources available in remediation theory, reception
aesthetics and interdisciplinary analysis, work on adaptation is just now
moving beyond the fidelity/deviance divide.
It follows, moreover, that adaptation studies that assume textual
privilege unproblematically accept the source text’s “originality” and
integrity, as though novels and other source texts themselves had never
been derivative or “intertextual” in any way. When compared to the
novelistic antecedent or source-text authority, the film adaptation is
implicitly assessed as third degree mimesis—as a better or worse imitation
of an imitation of life or nature—and this makes for particularly restrictive
research. Indeed, once one has sorted through the “cardinal functions” and
“catalyzers” added to or omitted from the plot of the source-text to make
the film, what really does anyone have left to talk about?2 This is to say
that, once one has identified the lynchpin events in a text—the acceptance
of a loan or a proposal of marriage—along with moments that act as
catalyzers to these events (receiving a letter, answering a phone call), and
then tallied them up against their presence or absence in the filmed
narrative, little remains to be said since the accuracy or inclusiveness of
the imitation is the object of the exercise.
In a discussion of imitation and play in Truth and Method, however,
Gadamer offers what might be some helpful advice on thinking about
imitation and representation. He writes that: “imitation and representation
are not merely a second version [sic], a copy, but a recognition of the
essence […] they contain the essential relation to everyone for whom the
representation exists” (Gadamer 103). Yet while Gadamer wants to locate
essence in the relationship of the beholder to the imitation, he hastens to
add that when “someone makes an imitation […] there exists an
2
I refer here, of course, to Roland Barthes’ essay, “Introduction to the Structural
Analysis of Narratives” (1966). For Barthes, “cardinal functions” are those hinge-
points on which a narrative turns and which produce consequences for the
characters that people it. “Catalyzers” are complimentary to cardinal functions and
may contribute to them.
66 Chapter Seven
unbridgeable gap between the one thing, that is a likeness, and the other
that it seeks to resemble” (Gadamer 103, my italics). Important here is
Gadamer’s recognition that, while imitation may render another thing in
distillation, it is also born of the inherent and irreconcilable distance
between the thing and its imitation. It is precisely this dual possibility that
strikes me as something of a happy solution to the problematics of film
adaptation and the literary fictions they “imitate”, in Gadamer’s sense, and
which I will presently explore in my reading of Reisz’s film The Gambler.
Equally helpful in rethinking film adaptation is Bakhtin’s notion of
polyphony or many voices. By polyphony Bakhtin means that a given sign
may have several referents, allowing for an inflation of the strict, realist
concept of the sign. Furthermore, if a given cultural signifier may have a
variety of possible signifieds, rather than being stabilized as a sign, all
possible signifieds are themselves susceptible to becoming signifiers for
any number of new possible signifieds. The consequences for adaptation
studies are fairly obvious: in a polyphonic conceptualization of the novel,
the text would be understood as containing a multiplicity of voices and
meanings rather a fixed signified in the unimpeachable literary source.
Hence, any given novelistic signifier could have a virtually infinite
number of possible cinematic or digitally produced signifieds, and the
author would be positioned as one of many voices rather than the ultimate
authority.3 So, if we were to take Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony
seriously, along with Gadamer’s notion of the unbridgeable gap between
thing and imitation, then filmic adaptations would per definition not
conform to one standard vision of the text, but rather constitute themselves
as new, polyphonic entities.
Karel Reisz’s Gambler (1974)

In the hope of moving to a discussion of adaptation that reaches
beyond questions of fidelity, I will undertake a reading of Karel Reisz’s
film, The Gambler (1974), and Dostoyevsky’s novel by the same name.
My reasons for choosing this novel and film dyad have largely to do with
the special, if not bizarre, relation it bears to standard notions of
adaptation. This is to say that the film, set in New York in 1974 as opposed
to Dostoyevsky’s fictional Roulettenburg of 1866, has but a few points in
3
Paul Ricoeur has also written on what he calls the process of distantiation which
takes place once an author has published a given text, at which point the author
becomes just one more potential interpretative voice. As he writes, when a thought
is transcribed and published in any given form it results in a “liberation of writing
whereby it gets substituted for speech [as] the birth of text” (137).
common with its ostensible literary antecedent. The first similarity to the
text is, of course, the title, and an oblique connection may perhaps be
drawn with the film’s main character, a professor of literature named Axel
Freed (James Caan), who happens to be teaching Dostoyevsky. As Freed
tells his rapt learners, his interesting if somewhat misguided interpretation
of The Gambler is that it demonstrates how “Dostoyevsky detests the fact
that two plus two make four and reserves the sacred right to insist that two
and two make five […] riding on the sheer will to believe that he’s right
[…]. ‘Reason only satisfies man’s rational requirements. Desire, on the
other hand, encompasses everything. Desire is life.’” The blind, irrational
faith that two plus two might one day equal five is shared by teacher and
author in this film and, like the young protagonist in Dostoyevsky’s story,
Axel Freed finds himself in a downward spiral driven by fits of
compulsive gambling based, perhaps, on this blind faith.
This, however, is where most of the tenuous most of the tenuous
similarities between novel and text end, and there are otherwise very few
diegetic or extra diegetic references to Dostoyevsky’s Gambler in Reisz’s
film. As I noted above, the setting has moved from a fictitious location in
Southern Germany in the 19th century, to postmodern America, and the
aristocratic grandmother has been replaced with a remarkably indulgent
mother. What is more, almost none of the action in the film takes place in
a casino, in contrast to the novel wherein much of the action is set around
a roulette wheel in an old-world casino.
But what about intertextuality? Could one not argue that the film
qualifies as adaptation using Genette’s notion of intertextual “quotation,
plagiarism, and allusion,” rather than slavish, historical adherence to the
text (Naremore 65)? If so, then the film is intertextual in the most liberal
possible sense, since the only passage that James Caan textually cites in
the movie is from Notes from the Underground.4 One might conclude that
the inclusion of this detail is nothing more than Reisz paying lip service to
Russian literature, appeasing the viewer’s desire for a “matching of the
cinematic sign system to a prior achievement in some other system”
(Andrew 9). But rather than dismissing the film as an adaptation based on
its tenuous relation to the source text, I want to see how the film addresses
the novel as a partial and innovative adaptation, and hence challenges the
notion of faithfulness.
This said, however, my argument necessitates a brief examination of a
few aspects of plot in film and text that present vague similarities. Both
4
I refer here to the passage quoted above, namely, “Reason only satisfies man’s
rational requirements. Desire, on the other hand, encompasses everything. Desire is
life” (Dostoyevsky 2412).
68 Chapter Seven
are tales of a gambler hell-bent on self-destruction, doubling and

redoubling his debts, desperately chasing after the “juice” that makes
compulsive gambling a high. More importantly, both protagonists explain
their motives for gambling not in terms of winning, but rather in terms of
losing. While it is commonly assumed that the motivator in games of
chance is the possibility of winning, compulsive gamblers describe the
extraordinarily irrational, almost sure-loss risks they take in terms of
nobility and courage, and frequently play, however unconsciously, to lose.
Hence, as Axel Freed explains: “if all my bets were safe, there wouldn’t be
any juice”, or again, “I like the threat of losing.” What compulsive
gamblers play for is the dizzying rush of losing, and the fleeting
aristocratic privilege of feeling able to part nonchalantly with large sums
of money. At the heart of serious gambling is the possibility that one could
surrender economic agency on the blind turn of a card, hence the
excitement of deep-play resides in relinquishing control at the moment of
expenditure. This is what gamblers refer to as “getting their rocks off,”
where “the fear of loss is an important condition for […] [their]
excitement” (Elstar 316).5
The thrill that gamblers get out of playing at the edge of the abyss, or
the “edge-work” as it is often called, is effectively a sort of negative
sublime experience, during which the gambler totters precariously on the
brink of self-extinction (Thompson 80).6 Indeed, the studied or intuitive
notion that gamblers are possessed of a remarkably vague physiognomy
springs precisely from gamblers’ compulsion to flaunt their own finality.
This is why the faceless gambler has for centuries been a standard figure
in both literary works as well as in studies that attempt to view gambling
scientifically. Hence, as early as 1779 Dusaulx wrote the following in his
De la passion du jeu.
What particularly characterizes gamblers is their lack of any character.

Their tumultuous and contrary feelings reciprocally destroy each other and
leave only confused traces. They have the faces of lost men with no
distinct physiognomy (qtd. Kavanagh 36).
5
On the relationship of gambling to sexuality and particularly to masturbation, see
Kavanagh 36-7.
6
For more on these kinds of sublime experiences, consult Richard Klein’s
Cigarettes are Sublime. Durham: Duke UP. 1993. The term “edge work” was
coined by Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and later fully
developed by Stephen Lyng in Edgework: The Sociology of Risk-Taking. On
gambling and deep-play, see Geertz 412-453.
This same faceless subjectivity and tumultuous behavior distinguishes

Dostoyevsky’s gambler who melts into crowds and tells the reader, “I tried
to be as irrational as possible on purpose” (36). In Reisz’s film, the figure
of the faceless gambler is evoked in a story that Axel Freed’s girlfriend,
Billie (Lauren Hutton), tells him about a previous trip she made to Las
Vegas, also with a compulsive gambler. Her friend’s story ends in a rowdy
losing streak, punctuated by his removal from a casino and subsequent
disfigurement with a broken bottle. In other words, the facelessness of the
gambler, expressed metaphorically in most literature, is retold quite
literally in flesh and blood in Reisz’s film, with the casino bouncers
modifying the gambler’s face beyond recognition.
Constantly oscillating between the poles of being and nothingness, the
gambler in both stories is drawn forward down a trail of animistic clues
and omens–or as Axel puts it, “I’ve got magic powers. [The numbers I
pick will] win because I picked them.”7 And it is precisely this dialectic of
heroic wins and losses—the inevitable result of believing in luck—that
Reisz translates so persuasively into the language of cinema, using striking
camera angles and semiotic notes that constitute the film’s eloquent visual
texture. For example, in a sequence in Las Vegas, Reisz creates the illusion
of a giant crown poised on Axel’s head, by framing him in the radiating
rays of a chandelier in the ceiling of Caesars Palace, as he makes a series
of hugely “courageous” bets.
Axel Freed (James Caan) in Caesars Palace, The Gambler (1974)
Just moments later, on the opposite end of the gambling spectrum from
this experience of sovereign expenditure, Freed is represented coming
7
On the topic of magic, animism and omens in gambling see Reith 156-175 and
Elstar 311-312. See also Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, in particular the
chapter entitled “The Belief in Luck” 169-179.
70 Chapter Seven
down in a hotel room. In stark juxtaposition to the highs of enormous wins

and losses captured in the bright lighting of the proceeding Caesars Palace
segment, this scene is filmed in a dark room and gains in drama through in
a series of shot-reverse-shots that structure Billie’s wrenching story of the
disfigured gambler from her previous Las Vegas experience. As we read
the message of impending doom on his face, the eerie and infinitely
receding darkness that informs the mise-en-scène of this segment suggests
the abyss, and looks ahead to Freed’s own disfigurement at the close of the
film.
Axel Freed (James Caan) The Gambler (1974)
The Science of Luck

Some gamblers, like Dostoyevsky’s Alexei Ivanovich, attempt to
balance the heroic gestures and occasional lucky streaks that almost
invariably end in terrifying loss, by constructing fictitious systems
intended to control games of chance. As Ivanovich explains, while some
people sit around the casino with paper and pencil scrawling down useless
formulas, he has observed that, although “there is no system, there [is]
really a sort of order in the sequence of casual chances,” and goes on to fill
a page with the alternations between red and black, which merely helps
him to lose “every farthing very quickly” (Dostoyevsky 17).
This kind of partial faith in the possibility of working the odds seems
of a piece with nineteenth-century notions of statistical proof that
developed out of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theories of
probability and large numbers.8 In a groundbreaking history of chance in
8
Pascal was one of the pioneers of large number theory, based on the notion that,
given a large enough sampling of throws of the dice, one would see the emergence
of a recognizable and predictable curve. See Reith 32-3 and Kavanagh 16-21.
the Western world, Gerda Reith has studied hazard and the attempts made
to control or celebrate it over time. She argues that the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries sought to rationalize chance with probability theories
developed with the idea of plotting and predicting the course of random
events in financial institutions, just as on the green felt. But the history of
harnessing the forces of chance ultimately moved in the direction of
embracing rather than controlling it, since the latter is impossible. Still
reeling from the speculative bubbles of the eighteenth century, the
nineteenth century tried to steer a course of moderated and controlled
speculation rather than attempting to suppress chance altogether. This
resulted in the rise of the casino and casino culture as well as the birth of
the slot machine, as the process of separating work from leisure into
distinct spheres necessitated the construction of casinos built for non-
utilitarian expenditure (Reith 106-9). Yet all the while the nineteenth
century looked forward to what Reith calls the ontologization of chance, a
process that would be complete by the 20th century, culminating in the
fully ontologized and commodified experience of chance, packaged in
various forms such as getaway vacations to Reno and Las Vegas.
The thoughts of Dostoyevsky’s young gambler reflect the slow
acceptance of chance underway in the 19th century, as he explains that a
member of his entourage engages in “a much safer speculation,” namely,
lending money to gamblers in the casino for a fixed rate of interest (43).
Likewise he notes that there are two distinct kinds of gamblers – the petty,
calculating sort, interested in winning, and the truly patrician gambler,
who must not lower himself to “the shifty dodges on which the bank
depends” (10). These comments are evidence of a perceived similarity
between legitimate speculation and illegitimate gambling and the
uncomfortable proximity of the two in the space of the casino.
Dostoyevsky’s mention of gambling and banking in the same breath
foreshadows the process already described, that reached its zenith in
postmodern speculation. It also suggests that gambling offered a radical
and infinitely more exciting form of speculation – a sort of crack version
of pedestrian investment where players wager against a casino banker. So
if one were making a “faithful” filmed adaptation of the attitudes one
encounters in Dostoyevsky’s story, the best setting would probably be a
lavish 19th-century casino, replete with velvet curtains and evening
dresses – a whole world apart from commerce.
However, by not choosing the option of producing a heritage costume
drama set in Dostoyevsky’s “Roulettenberg,” Reisz refused the kind of
period trappings that might distract the viewer from the specific
experiential world of the gambler at a later point in history. I surmise,
72 Chapter Seven
furthermore, that Reisz’s idea was to adapt something like the essence of
gambling in his own time, when the process of “hedging one’s bets,”
which in itself is a risky practice, had started down the slippery slope to
appropriation as a viable instrument of credit.9 This is made clear in the
first scene of the film where craps, twenty-one and poker are going on in a
sleazy apartment, rather than in an upscale casino, suggesting that
gambling has spilled beyond any casino-style containment. Throughout
the film Axel will find any number of occasions to gamble virtually
anywhere, from a vacant-lot basketball game; through bookies whom he
contacts on pay phones at the side of a highway and finally; to the
classroom. Indeed, in the film version of The Gambler, the uncanny
likeness of wager and speculative investment are flaunted in a scene shot
in a bank, where the generalized spirit of gambling and the resemblance it
bears to deep speculation is brought to our attention. Here Freed waits for
his mother to withdraw $45,000 dollars with which he promises to pay his
bookie and Reisz positions James Caan in front of a poster that reads “We
can give you the fastest ‘yes’ in town,” advertising the speed with the bank
can front cash for speculative ventures and, in this case, addictive
gambling.
Axel Freed waits for a loan, The Gambler (1974)
Conclusions
The year in which Reisz shot The Gambler, namely 1974, is not
without significance as it came close on the heels of a major economic
9
For a more in-depth study on the progressive erasure of the line between
speculation and gambling, see de Goede 47-87. On the relationship between
gambling, sensation culture, capitalism and films set in Las Vegas, see Goggin,
“Remake” 105-121. See also Reith 150-1.
event. In 1971 the United States and indeed the world economies were
radically altered when Richard Nixon decided to unpeg paper money once
and for all from the gold standard that had grounded it for centuries. From
this moment, known to many as the birth of postmodern economics,
money came to be determined not by a stable, fixed standard, but rather by
its relationship to other currencies in circulation. In other words, at this
juncture money became properly polyphonic having not one “golden”
voice, as it were, but rather the capacity to converse in a variety of
currencies. As a signifier, money no longer signifies just the gold standard
but rather any number of mutually defining signifiers of value, a little like
a novel that may give rise to a multiplicity of adaptations or visions. This
last consideration has two further ramifications for the film in question,
and I will conclude by briefly unpacking both.
As I mentioned earlier, the quotation read by Freed in his role as
professor is, misleadingly enough, from Notes from the Underground
rather than from The Gambler, but this is not the only literary “loose
change” that circulates more or less legitimately in the film. By literary
loose change, I refer to the proliferation of seemingly literary
intertextuality that begins to inflate and circulate somewhat more freely in
postmodern literature and other cultural production. Like surplus change,
which is quite obviously a signifier of value, analogous signifiers of
cultural value (authors, titles) have come unpegged from supposedly
authentic, authoritative interpretations or from versions and editions of
specific texts in postmodern culture, as they inflate in circulation. At the
same time, such signifiers of value may equally no longer relate to any
“real,” underlying text as in Reisz’s film, that would serve a sort of literary
gold standard – rather they frequently relate to the mere notion of
literariness. Hence, in another classroom sequence the Freed character
shamelessly misquotes D. H. Lawrence, and then moves on to William
Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, and e. e. cummings’ famous first line,
“Buffalo Bill’s defunct.”10 Indeed, the entire film is composed of a
polyphony of literary texts and high culture references such as the
extradiegetic music which is an adaptation of Mahler’s First Symphony.
As I see it then, Reisz’s Gambler is marked by an important moment in the
history of capitalism in a variety of ways, including its portrayal of
speculation and gambling and, more subtly, by the typically postmodern
practice of consuming other texts and making them part of a bricolage of
cultural referents that freely circulate as Derridean supplements.
10
The D. H. Lawrence quote is a fabrication and he is not cited in the credits,
unlike the other authors I have just mentioned.
74 Chapter Seven
The postmodern practice of unpegging money from the gold standard

so that its value is contextually determined against other currencies, and its
parallel in textual practices such as adaptation, draws with it the
postmodern penchant for deconstructing binary oppositions. In the case of
Reisz’s Gambler, such deconstructed or at least destabilized binaries
would include original/imitation, black/white, Jewish/gentile, hetero/
homo, legal/illegal, open/closed.11 The deconstruction of this last pair
gives postmodern narrative its distinctive open-endedness, and The
Gambler certainly leaves the viewer with an unsettling sense of
undecidability. The film concludes when Freed miraculously frees himself
of debt, only to go chasing down the “juice” in a neighborhood where his
friend and financier warns him he is sure to be killed. In the final scene he
contemplates a huge gash in his face, which he has received from a
prostitute after brutally beating her pimp. Although by this point the
viewer has seen Axel charm his way out of a number of tight spots, I
would argue that this moment constitutes his first step towards joining the
ranks of the truly faceless. This is his first serious move toward becoming
one who completely relinquishes agency and control for the swoon of
illicit expenditure. While this moment is, quite pointedly about money, it is
also about the complete externalization of the self in the frenzy of high-
stakes, ostentatious expenditure.12
In closing, I would like to consider the question of why audiences
should want to watch a professor of literature slowly self-destruct? The
answer to this question, I believe, resides in the capacity of late capitalism
to domesticate everything in its path, including what Hinton R. Helper
once referred to as “the best bad things […] obtainable in America,”
among which is gambling (Helper 68). Throughout the film, however, the
Caan character is looking for a way to step outside of Vegas-style
11
The film is highly conscious of both race and sexual orientation, and slurs
concerning both are prevalent throughout. Likewise, Freed’s grandfather suggests
that his girlfriend, Billie (Lauren Hutton), is neither of the right class or race,
setting Freed off down a path of self-destruction after just settling his debts. In
most other cases the binaries are overturned as in the case of Axel’s tough, black
inner-city student whom the professor of literature corrupts by getting him to fix a
basketball game for a ring of white thugs.
12
I refer here to Bataille’s Accursed Share, and his notion of ostentatious
expenditure. See in particular the chapter entitled “The Notion of Expenditure” in
which he lists unproductive activities including various forms of luxury such as the
construction of sumptuous monuments, spectacle, and non-procreative sexuality as
examples of ostentatious expenditure. Following Bataille, I have argued that
gambling is another example of this kind of ostentation. See Goggin, “Big Deal”
82-119. See also Reith 150-1.
commodified gambling and get to the “real,” lethal, hard-core rush, and
this is important to the question of how Reisz has adapted Dostoyevsky. I
want to suggest that if this movie manages to get close to anything “real”
or authentic it is not one particular source-text, but rather what
distinguishes this adaptation is its slavish adherence to the towering highs
and low lows of the wager – in other words, the “real” thing that Axel
Freed is after. And this in turn is entirely in keeping with current theories
of postmodern culture and particularly digital media wherein the post-
Cartesian subject, like her distant pre-Cartesian ancestors, craves sensory
experiences like gambling that entertain the mind as well as the body.13
I am further suggesting that, if it is safe to follow Jameson in claiming
that economic modes such as late capitalism express themselves in a
particular aesthetic or sense of style, like postmodernism, then I would
argue that, since the seventies, capitalism has favoured the sensational.
Appropriately then, Reisz’s Gambler produces an almost sickening
sensory reaction to the haptic texture of failures and risks it presents.
Therefore, as a work that marks the very beginnings of postmodernism it
is perhaps more an adaptation of what was then a new aesthetics of
sensation, rather than a reproduction of anything in particular in
Dostoyevsky, save a few passages that describe the sensory experience of
gambling. Appropriately then, sensuality and the enterprise of chasing it
down permeate the film from first line onwards, as the camera pans a
sleazy backroom to light on Axel Freed who anxiously calls out, “Drink!”
as he gambles the night away.
13
See Darley 167-191.
76 Chapter Seven
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—. Notes from the Underground. Trans. Mihael Katz. The Norton
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Elliott, Kamilla. Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate. Cambridge:
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—. “From Remake to Sequel: Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Twelve.”
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Lyng, Stephen, ed. Edgework: The Sociology of Risk-Taking. London and
New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
McFarlane, Brian. Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of
Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Print.
Naremore, James. “Introduction: Film and the Reign of Adaptation.” Film
Adaptation. Ed. James Naremore. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP. 2000.
1-19. Print.
Ray, Robert B. “The Field of ‘Literature and Film.’” Film Adaptation. Ed.
James Naremore. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP. 2000. 38-54. Print.
Reith, Gerda. The Age of Chance: Gambling and Western Culture. London
and New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Ricoeur, Paul. “What is a Text?: Explanation and Interpretation.” Mythic-
Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology. Ed. D. M.
Rasmussen. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971. 135-152. Print.
Rotman, Brian. Signifying Nothing: The Semiotics of Zero. Stanford:
Stanford UP. 1987. Print.
Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation: The New Critical Idiom.
New York and London: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Stam, Robert. “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation.” Film
Adaptation. Ed. James Naremore. London: The Athlone Press, 2000.
54-79. Print.
Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey
to the Heart of the American Dream. 1971. New York, Vintage Books,
1998. Print.
Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. 1899. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 2009. Print.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE EASTWOOD AGENDA IN THE ADAPTATION

OF WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART (1990)
CHARLES HAMILTON
In 1953, Peter Viertel, a screenwriter who worked with director John

Huston during the pre-production of the movie The African Queen in
1951, wrote White Hunter, Black Heart, a book about his experiences with
Huston in London and then in Africa. In this roman à clef Viertel shows
Huston as a self-centered, egotistical, narcissistic, personality, who is
obsessed more with the killing of an elephant than the making of the film
he is there to complete. In 1990, Clint Eastwood, after reading the
screenplay and the book, decided to direct, produce, and star in White
Hunter, Black Heart, an adaptation of the book to film. What followed was
a unique set of circumstances; an original book about Huston’s and
Viertel’s experiences written by Viertel, a screenplay written by Viertel,
Viertel working with Eastwood almost forty years later to make changes in
the adaptation, and Viertel watching himself portrayed in the character of
Pete Virrell (played by Jeff Fahey) and Eastwood in the character of John
Wilson (Huston) as they re-create an historical situation. But, the question
remains, what drew Clint Eastwood to this story from 1953? What was it
about Huston and his behavior that fascinated Eastwood to the point of
taking on this project? Eastwood saw parts of himself in the character of
Huston, but he also saw traits that were the opposite. “It fascinated me, as
obsessive behavior always does,” says Eastwood. “Here was a personality
that offered a real dichotomy. He could be full of charm and generosity,
concerned with the down-and-out, and at the same time cruel to people in
his entourage, if that was his mood” (Ciment 160). In White Hunter, Black
Heart Clint Eastwood adds his personal agenda to the adaptation,
emphasizing what he feels are the important aspects, good or bad, of
Huston’s character, while offering an insight into the behind-the-scenes
character of one of Hollywood’s iconic directors.
The Eastwood Agenda in the Adaptation of White Hunter, Black Heart 79
The question of fidelity to the source text as a criterion of value

surfaces here, as it does in most film adaptations. Theorist James Welsh
(105) argues for fidelity, while Robert Stam (64) argues for adaptations as
separate, stand-alone pieces, and Julie Sanders (18) speaks of adaptation
and appropriation as revision for modern times. Journalistic critics seem to
have less of a tendency to follow the fidelity criticism model, and are more
likely to look at adaptations as new, creative efforts, judged from an
entertainment aspect, that may be only slightly related to their source-
texts. For Example, Rob Gonzalves, reviewer for Efilmcritic.com, focuses
almost all his review on Eastwood’s acting, rather than on the story or a
comparison with the original text, as do other critics (Ebert, Henderson,
Kempley, Maslin, Travers). Within all this controversy enter intertextuality
and appropriation, which have the potential to move us further away from
the source-texts, according to Sanders (3), while Leitch’s view is that:
“Fidelity makes sense as a criterion of value only when we can be certain
that the model is more valuable than the copy” (6). In adding his personal
touches Eastwood believed that he “took the last script of Peter Viertel,
and screenwriters Burt Kennedy, and James Bridges, who also worked on
the adaptation, cut out a few things and added a few, but in the main it was
a work of adjustment. What I liked about this script is that it was faithful
to the book, contrary to some previous versions, which had eliminated
elements that in my opinion had to be preserved” (Ciment 160-61). Much
of the dialogue from the book appears word-for-word in the film. Linda
Hutcheon believes that: “Because adaptation is a form of repetition
without replication, change is inevitable, even without any conscious
updating or alteration of setting” (Hutcheon xvi); her observation could be
said to apply to Eastwood’s selection of material in White Hunter, Black
Heart:
Postcolonial dramatists and anti-war television producers have likewise

used adaptations to articulate their political positions. This kind of political
and historical intentionality is now of great interest in academic circles,
despite a half-century of critical dismissal of the relevance of artistic
intention to interpretation by formalists, New Critics, structuralists, and
poststructuralists alike (94).
Portraying the way Wilson/Huston treated those people who were close
to him was a major point of interest for Eastwood. When he was asked to
define or discuss Wilson’s attitude toward those around him, he responded:
“With Wilson – like Huston – there was a very strong feeling for the
victims of society; he felt drawn to them. On the other hand, he could
appear very brutal towards people who worked closely with him” (Ciment
80 Chapter Eight
168) (Huston will be referred to as Wilson and Viertel as Virrell from this
point onwards). To illustrate this, shortly after arriving at Wilson’s
residence, and getting re-acquainted, Verrill is asked if he has seen the
script. He says he has not, and Wilson summons his personal secretary,
Miss Wilding (Charlotte Cornwell), and asks for a copy, which she cannot
find. Wilson’s tirade begins thus: “You’re a hell of a secretary, Jeanie
[Wilding]. What do you do all day long?” (Viertel 23). As she and others
in the room react to his statement, Wilson says: “Don’t help the bitch lie.
God damn it, when you came here you were a competent secretary. Now
you’re just a lazy slut, hanging around here all day spying on me for
Landau” (23). Eastwood, and the characters he has portrayed, also feel
strongly about the victims of society, the “little guys,” but in his business
life he is known for his fairness and camaraderie in the treatment of his
staff, quite the opposite of Wilson.
But when it comes to directorial style, Eastwood and Huston have
some similarities. Both allow their actors to act with as little direction as
possible; both choose projects that might seem too much of a risk to the
studios and their personal careers; both like shooting on location; and both
rely heavily on the talent and experience of their film crews. Eastwood
even confesses that he has had some run-ins with producers. This
experience shapes his interpretation of the film’s central sequence of
confrontation. During a conference in producer Paul Landau’s suite
between the British backers of the film, Landau (George Dzundza),
Wilson, and Verrill (Jeff Fahey), the question of saving money on
production costs by shooting some scenes on a river in England is brought
up by one of the backers. Wilson says if this is going to be the case they
need to find another director. One of the backers says that had already
been discussed, which again throws Wilson into a rage. Wilson confronts
Landau in his bedroom: “You discussed the possibility of it [...] behind my
back, you son of a bitch.” Landau counters: “I didn’t mention it to you
because there isn’t a chance in the world that it [the film] will be done that
way.” “You guarantee it, I suppose,” says Wilson. “Yes, God damn it, I
guarantee it,” screams Landau. To which Wilson replies: “Well, your
guarantee doesn’t mean a damn thing to me” (Viertel 36). “During the
filming of The African Queen there really was an antagonism between him
[Huston/Wilson] and Spiegel [Landau],” says Eastwood. “I’ve witnessed
this in my own life, I’ve seen directors who would oppose producers
simply because they were in front of them” (Ciment 168). But, in this
case, “Paul Landers – inspired by Sam Spiegel – says some true things
also. He’s not the ‘bad guy.’ He has his own responsibilities. The only ‘bad
guy’ in the story is Wilson’s obsession” (Ciment 163).
Wilson’s need to stand up for the “victims of society,” is made clear in

two back-to-back scenes that occur in the dining room of the hotel where
they are staying in Entebbe, Uganda. The first begins during supper and
involves Verrill, Wilson, and Mrs. MacGregor (Mel Martin), who is not
only a racist, but also anti-semitic. As she explains her dislike for blacks
and Jews, Verrill, as a Jew, speaks up. She brushes him off and makes the
comment: “Of course you’re not. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but that was
the one thing about which I thought Hitler was absolutely right” (Viertel
157). The discussion continues with Wilson telling her a story, obviously
similar, about another beautiful woman with the same feelings as Mrs.
MacGregor, and ending with him calling this other woman the “ugliest
goddamn bitch in the world,” while making a direct comparison to Mrs.
MacGregor. She excuses herself from the table, gets up and leaves. Wilson
tells his entire story eloquently, with a smile on his face and a controlled
soft tone of voice. He has made his point very clear (Viertel 157-161). As a
coda to the scene in the film, Wilson (Eastwood had read that Huston also
been a draftsman) takes a pad out of his pocket and begins to sketch Mrs.
MacGregor, finishing with a Hitler-type mustache, further emphasizing his
dislike for her attitudes (White Hunter DVD ch.10).
The second instance of Wilson’s personal war on bigotry and racism
takes place before he and Verrill leave the bar following the incident with
Mrs. MacGregor. Harry (Clive Mantle), the headwaiter, is in the process of
physically and verbally abusing one of the black waiters, who has
accidentally dropped a tray of drinks, when Wilson confronts him: “Harry,
I think you’re a yellow, rotten, sadistic son-of-a-bitch.” Verrill tries to stop
Wilson, but he continues: “You’re yellow, Harry. Bright yellow. You’re a
coward. Oh, you’re great when it comes to kicking the boys around. But
you’re yellow when you’re facing someone like me” (Viertel 164). A
fistfight ensues, with Wilson getting in some good punches, but the
younger and much more athletic Harry gets the best of him. Wilson’s need
to make a point is clearly illustrated with his statement: “It’s like I always
tell you, kid. You’ve got to fight when you think it’s the right thing to do.
Otherwise, you feel like your gut’s full of pus. Even if you get the hell beat
out of you, if you fight you feel okay about it” (White Hunter DVD ch.
12). Obviously Eastwood and Wilson agree in their hatred of racism:
Eastwood emphasizes almost every mention of it from the book in the
adaptation.
Richard Schickel, Eastwood’s biographer, writes: “What feeds Clint’s
temper is a profound sense of the world’s unreliability” (Clint 15). The
term “responsibility” is constantly discussed in articles dealing with this
movie. “In White Hunter, Black Heart,” writes Luis Miguel Garcia Mainar,
82 Chapter Eight
“the notion of the self crystallizes into an exploration of responsibility, a

value which, as Eastwood and contemporary social critics have said, is
frequently shunned in contemporary American society” (22). Mainar
contends that the main character’s “reflexive assessment” of his life as he
explores himself, and reconsiders his past and future, constitutes “vital
turning points” in the discovery of self: “The film exhibits an interest in
the conflict between the character’s personal morality and the more
external, social morality in the shape of responsibility towards others”
(24). The irony Eastwood is faced with in Wilson is the director’s capacity
to be totally unreliable in one case and, in the end, still create a very good
film. This unreliability in Wilson, according to Eastwood, is what
influenced Viertel to write the book: “He was in the presence of someone,
surrounded by all his technical crew, who was supposed to be scouting
locations and getting ready to direct a film and who left in search of
elephants to kill” (Ciment 162). In an attempt to combat this obsession
Verrill acts as Wilson’s conscience.: “That’s what I liked about this story,
that it didn’t confine itself to one character expressing his ideas [...] The
movie and the novel are about the interaction of several individual
philosophies” (163).
Offering his philosophy on filmmaking, Wilson deals with Verrill’s
ideas that the movie should leave audiences with a happy ending: “you’re
never going to be a good writer, a movie writer, or a novelist or anything.
[…] You let eighty million popcorn-eating idiots blow the cards out of
your hands […] If you write you’ve got to forget that anyone is ever going
to read it. If you make a movie you’ve got to forget that anyone is ever
going to see it” (Viertel 55). Verrill counters: “I think you’re either nuts, or
the most egocentric, irresponsible son of a bitch I’ve ever met. You’re like
a spoiled kid who hasn’t gotten his piece of candy. A Hollywood brat […]
People always said that you were a spoiler, that you left everything dead or
beaten up in your wake” (Viertel 309-310). Eastwood, referring to Verrill
as Wilson’s conscience says: “he has his own philosophy and sticks to it
even though the director, Wilson, sweeps everyone away in his wake
inasmuch as he’s the commander-in-chief of the project” (Ciment 163).
Focusing on the Wilson character, John Foote writes: “Wilson was a
man who gladly would go on location with someone else’s money to
satisfy a whim (of sorts), something Eastwood himself clearly would never
do” (86). Foote goes on to discuss what he terms the “one-sidedness” of
the adaptation in its portrayal of the Wilson character as a “heroic rebel
with an honesty that is brutal but just” (86). He feels Eastwood’s choice of
focusing almost the entire film on Wilson’s obsession with killing an
elephant underplays much of the story, especially the amount of time and
the studio’s money Wilson wasted. Much of the beginning of Viertel’s

source-text that dealt with this has been eliminated: Viertel had included
quite a bit of introductory information about Huston and his character by
showing examples of how he dealt with people – his arrogance, his
womanizing, and his large expenditures of studio money for personal
indulgences. There are also discussions of Huston’s scouting for hunting
sites, his meetings with other African white hunters, and his declining
mental state that Eastwood either toned down or eliminated totally. Julie
Sanders writes: “Adaptation is frequently involved in offering commentary
on a source-text. This is achieved most often by offering a revised point of
view from the original, adding hypothetical motivation, or voicing the
silenced and marginalized.” (18-19) She also comments: “as a process of
creation, the act of adaptation always involves both (re-)interpretation and
then (re-)creation; this has been called both appropriation and salvaging,
depending on your perspective [….] Therefore, an adaptation is a
derivation that is not derivative – a work that is second without being
secondary" (9). Eastwood’s film should be approached as a commentary
on Viertel’s source-text: “Though often portrayed as a monster in the film,
with a single-minded obsession, Wilson [in the film] is no less an artist, as
was Huston, an adventurer in life, who brought such adventure to the
screen” (Foote 87).
Although not unexpected, what made this adaptation especially open to
criticism was its subject. Being a roman à clef, critics and audiences had
no trouble identifying the Wilson character as John Huston, and the film
within the film as The African Queen, Huston’s best-loved film. “Film
critics have never quite known what to make of John Huston; whether his
work has been praised or disparaged, it has almost always inspired critical
overkill” (Coursen). The same is true in this case for Eastwood: “Having
committed this iconoclastic vision of Huston to film, Eastwood may find
himself confronting roving bands of outraged cinephiles” (Schickel,
“Elephant Man.”) Countering criticism of adaptations Hutcheon writes:
“By their very existence, adaptations remind us there is no such thing as
an autonomous text or an original genius that can transcend history, either
public or private. They also affirm, however, that this fact is not to be
lamented” (111). Some reviews embraced this point of view with
enthusiasm: “It is the obsessive in Huston (called John Wilson) that
Eastwood relates to. He sees the madness in a director who pushes aside
his film work for the ignoble task of hunting elephants, but he also sees the
maverick spirit that made Huston great, a spirit quite rare in Hollywood
today” (Travers). “For an actor best known for his slow burn and tendency
to underplay his parts, Eastwood’s blustery portrayal is something of a
84 Chapter Eight
revelation (he nails Huston’s low-throated growl and his over-gesticulating

hand motions)” (Henderson). Roger Ebert commented thus:
In the early scenes of White Hunter, Black Heart, Eastwood fans are likely
to be distracted to hear Huston’s words and vocal mannerisms in
Eastwood’s mouth, and to see Huston’s swagger and physical bravado.
Then the performance takes over, and the movie turns into one of the more
thoughtful films ever made about the conflicts inside an artist (Ebert).
Some reviews were not so complimentary. “It is hard to believe that

Viertel, who shares writing credit here with James Bridges and Burt
Kennedy, could have had anything to do with this clumsy and gaseous
screenplay, which includes many a line like, ‘You got to fight when it’s the
right thing to do, or you feel like your gut is full of pus’" (Kempley).
“White Hunter, Black Heart, even when not entirely successful, goes far
beyond the particulars of Huston’s adventures and explores Mr.
Eastwood’s own thoughts about artistry in general, film making in
particular, and hubris in all its many forms” (Maslin).
Unfortunately for Eastwood, White Hunter, Black Heart opened to less
than enthusiastic audiences, most not condemning his portrayal of Huston,
but upset with his character being so unlike his established screen persona.
“Similar to Eastwood, when Huston failed, he did so with films outside of
his comfort zone, such as the dreadful biblical epic The Bible (1966) and
the woeful musical adaptation of Annie (1982)” (Foote 86). Mainar
claimed that: “The fact that the film departs from previous Eastwood
works, while at the same time resembling them, makes it revisionist, a
self-conscious commentary on itself, disclosing an auteur who has a
conscious concern with the meanings he represents” (29). A philosophy
Eastwood shares with Huston is obvious here. “A lot of people advised me
not to make White Hunter, Black Heart because it didn’t correspond to
marketing studies on public tastes, and, although I didn’t use the same
terms as Wilson, I told them that you couldn’t worry about the supposed
desires of audiences” (Ciment 164).
Auteurism creates an expectation of what will happen in a film
directed by a specific director on account of what he has done in the past.
He creates a style that identifies his philosophy of film direction. In his
westerns, Eastwood has become a revisionist, moving aside the figure of
the western hero, and emphasizing the figure of the anti-hero, with no
special allegiance to anyone; no friends, and no name, just someone
leveling the playing field and moving on. In the series of Harry Callahan
movies, his character has moved into an urban setting, but, in reality, has
not changed much. He is still the loner, watching out for the little guy and
putting no faith in authority figures. In the case of White Hunter, Black

Heart, Eastwood again diverges from what we have come to expect to
show us the experiences of a man grappling with his inner demons
(Wilson), and firmly establishes himself as an auteur through his choices
of scenes and dialogue that present his message. This story is partially
about what Eastwood wanted to show about John Huston and partially
about what he wanted to show about the workings of the studio system of
the early Fifties. In the end, we are left with a scene he added that erases
any doubt that this is an Eastwood adaptation, a close up that has been
missing throughout the film. Viertel’s book ends with Wilson in the back
of a truck shortly after finding out that the local natives have labeled him
“white hunter, black heart,” because of his willingness to do anything for a
kill. Wilson simply says: “Drive on” (367). Eastwood chose to go a step
farther and emphasize the anguish Wilson was going through by returning
to the set, crew and actors in place, and Wilson in his director’s chair. As
members of the crew try to get his attention he is oblivious to external
happenings. As the camera begins a slow pan we see a wide view of the
set, with people at the ready, and then the classic Eastwood signature as
the camera begins a slow zoom to a close-up of Wilson’s contorted,
agonized, face, and ending with Wilson saying, with very little
enthusiasm, “Action” (White Hunter DVD ch. 30). It may not be the
famous Eastwood gaze fans are used to, but it definitely signifies an
auteur’s adaptation with the Eastwood touch, an impressive improvement
on the source-text.
86 Chapter Eight
Works Cited
African Queen (The). Dir. John Huston. Perf. Humphrey Bogart, Katherine
Hepburn, Robert Morley. United Artists, 1951. Film.
Annie. Dir. John Huston. Perf. Aileen Quinn, Albert Finney, Carol Burnett.
Columbia Pictures, 1982. Film.
The Bible. Dir. John Huston. Perf. Michael Parks, Ulla Bergryd, Richard
Harris, John Huston. Twentieth Century-Fox, 1966. Film.
Ciment, Michel. “Interview with Clint Eastwood.” Clint Eastwood:
Interviews. Ed. Robert E. Kapsis and Kathie Coblenz. Jackson: UP. of
Mississippi, 1999. 160-71. Print.
Coursen, David. “John Huston: Withholding Judgment.” Parallax View. 13
May 2009. Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Ebert, Roger. “White Hunter, Black Heart.” Rogerebert.com. 18 Sep.
1990. Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Foote, John H. Clint Eastwood; Evolution of a Filmmaker. Westport:
Praeger Publishers, 2009. Print.
Gonzalves, Rob. “White Hunter, Black Heart.” Efilmcritic.com. 4 Apr.
2007. Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Henderson, Eric. “White Hunter, Black Heart.” Slant Magazine, 2 Sep.
2003. Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York and London:
Routledge, 2006. Print.
Kempley, Rita. “White Hunter, Black Heart.” Washington Post, 21 Sep.
1990. Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Leitch, Thomas. Film Adaptation and its Discontents. Baltimore and
London: Johns Hopkins UP, 2007. Print.
Mainar, Luis Miguel Garcia. “Genre, Auteur and Identity in Contemporary
Hollywood Cinema: Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart.”
Miscelanea 26 (2002): 21-37. Print.
Maslin, Janet. “Eastwood Follows the Trail of the Elusive, Essential
Huston.” 1HZ<RUN7LPHV, 14 Sep. 1990. Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation. The New Critical Idiom.
New York and London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
Schickel, Richard. Clint Eastwood: a Biography. New York: Vintage,
1996. Print.
—. “Elephant Man.” Time, 24 Sep. 1990. Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Stam, Robert. Literature Through Film: Realism, Magic, and the Art of
Adaptation. Malden, VA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Print.
Travers, Peter. “White Hunter, Black Heart.” Rolling Stone, 18 Apr 2001.
Web. 4 Sep. 2010.
Viertel, Peter. White Hunter, Black Heart. New York: Dell, 1953. Print.
Welsh, James M. and Peter Lev, eds. The Literature/Film Reader: Issues of
Adaptation. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press Inc., 2007. Print.
White Hunter, Black Heart. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Clint Eastwood, Jeff
Fahey, Alun Armstrong. Warner Bros. 1990. DVD.
CHAPTER NINE
TIME, SPACE, AND CULTURE

IN STEPHEN KING AND STANLEY KUBRICK
SELGA GOLDMANE
Our surrounding world is being more and more over-flooded with

moving images, thus the ability to use and understand them is gradually
becoming an essential part of being literate in the twenty-first century.
This skill includes being able to relate to a visual stimulus, to explicate it
and subsequently understand its power.
This article deals with particular examples of the printed word and the
moving image, namely, literary works and films as their counterparts. Both
of these are perceived as texts and languages by many authors and
researchers (e.g. Metz and Cattrysse). Many of their expressed views
comply with the definition of a text given in the Merriam–Webster
dictionary as “something (as a story or movie) considered as an object to
be examined, explicated, or deconstructed” (Merriam-Webster) which puts
film on a par with the written text as an object of critical analysis, while at
the same time retaining its position of being a visual representation of the
printed word. Being texts, film and novel are “processual already to the
effect that [they are] […] psychologically situated between two infinities:
the history of generation and the history of reception” (Torop 75), which
references them to two different perspectives of space and time.
Additionally, the physical constraints of screen versions should be
mentioned as they relate to time and space very directly. The duration of
getting acquainted with each means of expression differs due to the limited
viewing time and supposedly unlimited reading time. This accounts for
most of the omissions and changes when comparing a novel and a film,
while prompting discussion on how to perceive screen versions of literary
works. The methodology adopted in this article is taken from film theory,
adaptation and literature studies as well as translation theory, thus making
it a truly interdisciplinary perspective. Film adaptation is considered to be
a derivative work insofar as it is the transfer of a written work to a feature
Time, Space, and Culture in Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick 89
film. However, also a novel itself can be referred to as an adaptation, as it

relates events and situations that have happened, might have happened or
will happen in reality or in our mind.
The discussion on adaptability has developed the notion that there are
parts of a novel which conform to adaptation and parts which do not.
McFarlane, for instance, points out the necessity to distinguish between
the elements of a novel “which are transferable because they are not tied to
one [...] specific semiotic system,” and the elements which are not easily
transferable as “their effects are closely tied to the semiotic system in
which they are manifested” (20). Thus he differentiates between an easily
transferrable narrative, which includes story, setting and characters, and a
more difficult practice of transferring enunciation, which in turn concerns
plot, tone and point of view. This seemingly simple distinction is later
somewhat criticized by Lawrence Venuti who argues that very easily
perceivable and comprehensible notions – for example setting are still
“transformed when [moved] from a novelistic description to a filmic
representation” (26).
Thus two views can be encountered – one perceiving film through
principles of adaptation theory (which puts emphasis on questioning the
adequacy of adaptation in terms of fidelity and alterations to the plot and
characters); and the other perceiving film through the principles of
translation theory that explore what norms have been fulfilled. Adaptation
has been equated with translation, transformation, transference,
interpretations: one of its research objectives is to reveal how meaning is
created with words in a literary text and how this verbal meaning is
translated into visual images.
Timothy Corrigan offers to discuss the issue of fidelity according to
several criteria: (i) how accurately the settings and plot are retained; (ii)
whether the nuance and complexity of the characters survive the
adaptation; (iii) whether the themes and ideas are communicated; (iv)
whether a different historical and cultural context has altered the original;
and (v) whether the change in the mode of communication has changed the
meaning of the work for a reader or viewer (20). However, taking into
consideration the above mentioned time constraints, the comparison is not
that easy to accomplish. This leads to the concept of cinematic adaptation
as not simply copying of the source-text, but rather as an interpretation,
addition, transfer of ideas and feelings. A distinction needs to be drawn
between how a verbal text chooses a concept and creates a mental image,
and how a cinematic text uses technologies and visual means to translate
these concepts on the screen.
90 Chapter Nine
Geoffrey Wagner in The Novel and the Film (1975) offers a three-
pronged typology of adaptation for the screen according to the method
used: transposition which entails transferring a novel to screen with
minimal interference; commentary which follows the literary origin quite
closely with some aspects being altered; and analogy in the case of which
the film is considered to be equally valued as the literary origin as it is a
completely new work of art (219-31). Dudley Andrew in Concepts in Film
Theory (1984) offers a similar classification – namely, borrowing that
corresponds to commentary; transformation that broadly matches
transposition; and intersecting which is postulated as being a visual
narrative counterpart of the printed story (96-104).
As a director who believes that “If it can be written, or thought, it can
be filmed,” (qtd. Haddad 290), Stanley Kubrick has creatively used several
adaptation methods in his work. A Clockwork Orange (1972) was based on
Anthony Burgess’s novel of the same title and employed Wagner’s
commentary method as Kubrick used the source-text to comment on how
societies approach the issue of violence. Both The Shining (1980) and
Barry Lyndon (1974) retained the atmosphere, the main events and
significant characters of their respective source-texts; but Kubrick added
picturesqueness to Barry Lyndon by studying period art and framing the
shots to resemble particular paintings.
Another field through which a literary adaptation can be viewed and
analyzed is by means of translation studies. A translation can be viewed as
“a change to a different substance, form, or appearance” (Merriam–
Webster); hence a photograph is a translation of an actual scene onto a
two-dimensional surface, a film is a translation of a literary work or real
life situations. Jakobson looks at three ways of how to interpret a word – a
verbal sign: it may be translated into other signs, thus creating the
categories of intra-lingual translation or simply rewording, inter-lingual
translation or translation proper which involves translation from one
language into another, and intersemiotic translation or transmutation that is
an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign
systems (260-6). Intersemiotic translation can include the transformation
of a literary text into an opera, a musical, a painting or a film. This
definition has been supported by both James Naremore (who states that
film often borrows plot from literary sources trying to translate them and
to recreate them on the screen) (67); and Venuti, who advocates the use of
translation theory in adaptation studies (25-43). Cattrysse argues that both
translation and adaptation studies “are concerned with the transformation
of source into target texts” and this process occurs “under some conditions
of ‘invariance,’ or equivalence” (54). He draws several parallels, namely,
that there is “a source-oriented approach [focusing] on the reconstruction

of the source text,” which includes the issue of fidelity; also, regarding
“adequacy and norms of equivalence” in the relation between the adapted
text and the original the issue should concern how film adaptation “should
proceed” instead of the usual practice of analyzing the result (54, emphasis
in original).
As the term adaptation determines that a primary text exists, we can
talk about the above mentioned faithfulness to this first text. At the same
time, for example, Walter Benjamin in his work The Task of the Translator
postulates the idea that in translations “the original’s life achieves its
constantly renewed, latest and most comprehensive unfolding” (62). Thus
the chief role of the translation is the popularization of a literary work. As
a process of coding and decoding, cinema adaptation similarly to
translation carries out the function of expanding the readers’ circle,
providing them with visibility.
This visibility in adaptation similarly to translation is ensured by the
fact that, for example, metaphors are transformed into more
understandable images; idiomatic expressions are substituted by more
explicit phrases; and cultural concepts are transposed so that they are more
accessible for the reader. Venuti’s concept of visibility (or invisibility) in
relation to translation can also be applicable as an assessment criterion of
adaptations.
Adaptation can be considered as a constructed response to a previously
created work; hence verbal and visual texts should be analyzed separately
as cultural artifacts. Santoro compares the analysis of a literary text “that
reveals the manner in which linguistic and literary tools such as
graphemes, syntax, tropes, semantic shadings, and narrative strategies
create a story and its characters” to its cinematic counterpart that “is
accomplished by means of cinematic tools such as mise-en-scène,
photography and camera work, editing, sound, narrative strategies and
choice of actors” (15-16). We should focus on how meaning is created
with literary tools, and how that meaning is transferred to screen by means
of cinematic tools.
Structurally both a literary work and a film text can be divided into
syntagmatic structures. In linguistics the term syntax means the system of
syntactic structures while in semiotics it defines the arrangement of signs
and relationships between them. According to Metz’s division of film
segments (123-33), in Kubrick’s The Shining the director often uses
descriptive syntagmas where the objects are shown in a sequential order so
that we can understand their spatial placement. As this syntagma is mostly
used to create setting, we can see in several shots of the visual description
92 Chapter Nine
of the exterior and interior of the Hotel Overlook that the camera either is
physically moved around in a room or statically shows a room from one
particular place to the place of action creating a description corresponding
quite closely to the ones portrayed in King’s novel. Barry Lyndon’s
descriptive images have been constructed with the help of slow zooms,
allowing the viewer to delight at the landscapes and the social gathering of
people.
Kubrick frequently exploits the parallel syntagma, which comprises
two changing motifs which do not have to have a time or space
connection. In the case of The Shining segments where Danny (Danny
Lloyd) is depicted with his mentally created scenes or Wendy (Shelley
Duvall) who either searches for her husband or follows him the time
connection is observable.
Another comparative category in a literary work and film context is
meaning-making. Denotative signification, which is also referred to as first
signification, is known as a mechanical depiction of reality that expresses
relations between the signifier and the signified whereas connotation in
language is the layered meaning of a language unit (word, word form,
phraseological unit, sentence) including stylistic shading, emotional
content, and either positive or negative evaluation. In semiotics
connotation is also characterized as adding cultural or personal attitude in
activities with signs. At the beginning of King’s The Shining there is a
sequence with the Torrence family on their way to their new home – Hotel
Overlook – in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. It is possible to determine
what car it is as it winds around a steep cliff. In the novel, however, the car
first appears at the moment when Danny sitting on a curb and talking to
his imaginary friend Tony (Danny Lloyd) is waiting for his Dad to come
home: “Then, in the next instant, Tony was gone and Daddy’s battered red
bug was turning the corner and chattering up the street” (King 36). The
color of the car in the film has been changed, but the associative shading
that is characteristic of this particular car make has been retained in the
script, as well as the fact that it is seen first when it winds around a corner.
The English word “bug,” with its direct meaning “insect,” instead of the
word “beetle” shows that the Torrences’ family car is possibly not in the
best technical condition.
Although the meaning in a literary work and film is made with
dissimilar means, considerable similarities in this process are observed.
One of the most frequently used tropes in Kubrick’s works is metaphor. Its
usage in a verbal text encourages visualization and imagination; in film
language it complements the objects, feelings or characters with a
connotative meaning. The symbolic usage of metaphors originates in
literary works and has been successfully transferred to the screen. For
instance, the metaphoric meaning of the road and the trip is depicted by
the adventurous trip of Barry Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal) in Barry Lyndon. The
labyrinth in The Shining as a metaphor of no way out or deadlock and
inevitability is the most prominent in the context of the Hotel Overlook –
both in the construction of the hotel itself and the use of the labyrinth in
the yard.
If the process of adaptation is compared to translation, various
strategies of text transformation take place. Firstly, the retention of the
metaphoric image in The Shining is exemplified by the scene where
Wendy and Danny are getting acquainted with the kitchen. There is a
detailed description of the kitchen labyrinth in the novel that is also clearly
shown in the film (King 78-79). In both media the labyrinthine aspect of
the kitchen has been emphasized as well as complemented by Wendy: “I
think [rewritten as “I feel” in the film] I’ll have to leave a trail of
breadcrumbs every time I come in” (King 78).
Secondly, the addition in the film of the above mentioned road and trip
metaphor that has been described in detail in the novel (“sheer rock faces”;
“the road got too steep”; “the road wound up and up in a series of slow S
curves”; “a slash valley that seemed to go down forever,”) complemented
with another meaning of this road as the feeling of future uncertainty and
foreboding (“They were beautiful mountains but they were hard. She did
not think they would forgive many mistakes. An unhappy foreboding rose
in her throat” (King 66)). Kubrick’s visual representation of this scene
shows the high mountains, the dangerous and steep road that is enhanced
by dramatic music that creates a feeling of this dark foreboding.
The film omits several passages in the novel due to spatial and
temporal conditions. Kubrick, for example, chose not to include several
characters in The Shining (Wendy’s mother, Jack’s colleague Al) that
automatically means crossing out several important episodes. On other
occasions he created new meanings: in the novel The Shining in the
chapter where the Torrences get acquainted with their new home, special
attention is paid to the fact that there are two separate beds (which
possibly symbolize the disintegration or falling apart of the family),
which, as Jack Torrence says, can be pushed together, thus implying his
willingness to save his family (King 105). In the film there is an ordinary
double bed and the emphasis in the dialog between the characters is laid
on the word “cozy.” In the novel during the conversation between Jack’s
wife Winifred and hotel’s chef Hallorann, after getting acquainted,
Hallorann asks her: “’Ma’am, are you a Winny or a Freddie?’ ‘I’m a
Wendy,’ she said, smiling. ‘Okay. That’s better than the other two, I
94 Chapter Nine
think’” (King 78). In the film’s dialogue Hallorann (Scatman Crothers)

seems much less aggressive as he concludes: “Oh, Wendy, that’s nice.
That’s the prettiest.” The way he talks to Wendy in the film is much
friendlier and more open.
In film another meaning-making technique is a close-up that does not
refer to size, but “testifies to the significance, the importance of the detail”
(Lotman 27). That indicates that a viewer needs to possess a special
attitude towards the dimensions of objects. Thus, the sudden cut in The
Shining from a close-up of Danny’s face to the vision of the two Grady
girls (Lisa and Louise Burns) signify horror, surprise, and disruption,
which is reinforced with the help of the tricycle and music as well as the
use of percussion instruments. All this helps to create a scene depicting the
novel’s emotional implications.
The French film theoretician Christian Metz wrote that film is difficult
to explain because it is easy to understand (qtd. Monaco 135); however,
film in comparison with a literary work gives sufficient material for
thinking and analysis where the not so easily understandable nature of film
can be disclosed. Kubrick’s language beautifully incorporates various
discourses of cinematic means – the camera, lighting, editing and sound –
in order to create meaningful statements. Similar to other directors,
Kubrick uses the movement of the camera to create both clichéd and
original meanings. The technique of slowly pulling the camera back as a
means for narrative closure making the subject disappear into its
surroundings signifies the withdrawal of the viewer’s close attention. For
example, the final shot of Barry Lyndon is an example of such distancing
from the characters and their problems.
Kubrick can be particularly distinguished for using natural lighting.
For Barry Lyndon Kubrick’s initial intention was to shoot scenes lit only
by candlelight. Consequently, as Kemp mentions in the description of
Kubrick’s legacy “being Kubrick he achieved it by an unprecedented
device, adapting a Mitchell BNC camera to take an ultrafast 50mm f 0.7
Zeiss lens originally developed for NASA”. He praises the result of this
technique being “scenes of a soft, luminous beauty that no other period
¿OPEHIRUHRUVLQFHKDVHYHUHTXDOHG´)RUWKHYLHZHULWPHDQVWKDW
he or she does not have to even notice or pay attention to lighting, except
when it is artistically accentuated as light coming beautifully through a
window. Kubrick is also renowned for his use of framing devices. In The
Shining alone around fifteen significant meaning-making frames can be
encountered, particularly the usage of doors to either close or open up a
space (e.g. the door through which Mr. Ullman (Barry Nelson) can be
seen) that signify both the vastness outside and the confined space in
which the Torrances are imprisoned. The frame built by a mirror is another
technique with several layers of signification. In the scene where Danny is
looking at himself shows the extent to which he is controlled by his
imaginary friend. All these small details lead to creating pieces of art that
need a knowledgeable viewer of the film to understand both the apparent
and hidden meanings.
96 Chapter Nine
Works Cited
Andrew, Dudley. Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford and New York: Oxford
UP. 1984. Print.
Barry Lyndon. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson.
Warner Bros., 1975. Film.
Benjamin, Walter. ,OXPLQƗFLMDV. Trans. IvDUV ,MDEV 5ƯJD /DLNPHWƯJƗV
PƗNVODVFHQWUV3ULQW
Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. 1962. London: Penquin, 2011.
Print.
Cattrysse, Patrick. “Film (Adaptation) as Translation.” Target 4.1 (1992):
53-70. Print.
Clockwork Orange (A). Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Malcolm McDowell,
Patrick Magee, Miriam Karlin. Warner Bros., 1971. Film.
Corrigan, Timothy. Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader. New
York: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1999. Print.
Haddad, Michael. The Screenwriter’s Sourcebook. Chicago: Chicago
Review Press, 2005. Print.
Jakobson, Roman. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” Selected
Writings: Word and Language. Vol 2. The Hague: Mouton, 1971. 260-
6. Print.
Kemp, Philip. “The Kubrick Legacy.” University of the Arts London
Magazine. (Spring/Summer 2006): 8-17. Print.
King, Stephen. The Shining. 1977. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2007.
Print.
Lotman, Jurij. Semiotics of Cinema. Trans. Mark E. Suino. 1976. Ann
Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 1981. Print.
McFarlane, Brian. Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of
Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Print.
Merriam – Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster.com (2011). Web. 28
Aug. 2011
Metz, Christian. Film Language: a Semiotics of the Cinema. Trans.
Michael Taylor. Oxford: Oxford UP. 1974. Print.
Monaco, James. The New Wave. New York: Oxford UP. 1977. Print.
Naremore, James, ed.. Film Adaptation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP.
2000. Print.
Santoro, P. J. Novel into Film: the Case of La familia de Pascual Duarte
and Los santos inocentes. Newark: U. of Delaware Press, 1996. Print.
Shining (The). Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall,
Barry Nelson. Warner Bros., 1980. Film.
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.

Oxford: Oxford UP. 1984. Print.
Torop, Peeter. “Intersemiosis and Intersemiotic Translation.” European
Journal for Semiotic Studies 12.1 (2000): 71-100. Print.
Venuti, Lawrence. “Adaptation, Translation, Critique.” Journal of Visual
Culture 6.1 (2007): 25-43. Print.
Wagner, Geoffrey. The Novel and the Cinema. New York: Associated
University Presses, Inc., 1975. Print.
CHAPTER TEN
THE HOURS (2002):

AN UNFAITHFUL ADAPTATION
RAHIME ÇOKAY AND ELA øPEK GÜNDÜZ
Adaptation is a practice of transforming a specific genre into another

mode, which is actually a re-vision in itself. In this transformation, that
genre removes from itself, loses its connection with the source-text and
turns into a separate identity. As this new identity is “someone else’s
truth,” it has its unique and specific properties. In that sense, there is a
close relationship between adaptation and intertextuality, based on the
notion that each adaptation is the product of the interrelation between
texts.
Adaptation raises the problem of “originality” and authorship as a
result of the problem of authenticity. In one way or another, an adaptation
is both related to another work yet a separate creative text in itself,
sometimes paying scant regard to the ideas of the source-text’s author.
Adaptation might be approached metaphorically as “a pedestal, but
perhaps a pool -- wherein, amidst the whirl of historical contingency and
cultural expectation [...] they [authors] have the opportunity to sink or
swim” (Lehmann 160). The source-text author might sink as the author of
the target text swims far from the spirit of the source-text.
This process can be well observed in Michael Cunningham’s novel The
Hours (1998), and Steven Daldry’s 2002 film adaptation of the same
name. The Hours has been inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
(1925), employing similar images and themes, while Daldry’s film is an
adaptation of the Cunningham novel. There are three authors here; and it is
the concern of this piece to analyze the extent to which all the authors have
“sunk” or “swam,” using the metaphor outlined above. In doing so, we try
to offer answers to the perennial questions of adaptation studies: “What
relationship should a film have to its source?” “Should it be “faithful?”
and “Can it be?” (Beja 80).
The Hours (2002): An Unfaithful Adaptation 99
At the beginning of the novel The Hours, Cunningham gives an extract

from Woolf’s diary (1923): “I’ve no time to describe my plans. I should
say a good deal about The Hours & my discovery; how I dig out beautiful
caves behind my characters; I think that gives exactly what I want;
humanity, humor, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect& each
comes to daylight at the present moment” (Woolf 1). By using this extract
Cunningham applies intertextuality so as to indirectly relate all the events
in the novel to Woolf’s life. In this extract, Woolf mentions that in her
novel Mrs. Dalloway, there are some aspects to her characters which are
left blank, and Cunningham tries to fill in the gaps in his novel. Daldry
takes that process further in the film by connecting the writer Virginia
Woolf (Nicole Kidman), the reader Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), the
experiencer Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) and the observer (the
spectators). The ideas of life-death, men-women, sanity-insanity,
loneliness, lesbianism, frigidity, lack of understanding in marriage are all
depicted in the movie through the three female characters.
Cunningham draws his characters in such a way that they somehow
reflect Woolf’s own worldview; but this reflection is divided into three, as
all the characters embody Woolf’s soul, as defined thus: “Still she loves
the world for being nude and indestructible, and she knows other people
must love it too […] Why else do we struggle to go on living, no matter
how compromised, no matter how hurried?” (Cunningham 14). This gives
the feeling that we are looking at Woolf’s character from one, if not two
removes; this effect is further emphasized in the Daldry’s film, which has
been shot from the perspectives of the director Daldry and the actress
Kidman. In a sense we are not being given an insight into the “real”
Woolf, but rather looking at the way in which a great author has been (re-
)constructed in both past and present. This is one of the main
consequences of adaptation; it is not only intertextual but draws us into
considering the processes by which adaptations are constructed.
Cunningham, in his novel, shows this process at work through three
different storylines, which give us completely new fictional characters
only incidentally related to Woolf’s life. There are certainly echoes of
Woolf’s novel – as, for example, in the extract from Mrs. Dalloway quoted
earlier, as well as in phrases such as “There are still many flowers to buy”
(Cunningham 9). However it is used for different purposes: in the novel it
is designed to make readers reflect on the very un-likeness of
Cunningham’s work to Woolf’s texts. In the film that un-likeness is
intensified, as the line is delivered by Meryl Streep: viewers are thus given
the experience of a film actress (with a specific screen persona), delivering
the lines of a modern reconstruction of Woolf, which is itself a
100 Chapter Ten
reconstruction of the Woolf source-text. This multi-leveled experience is

summed up in the following quote from the novel: “Mrs. Dalloway said
something (what?), and got the flowers herself. Is she in the bed or in a
park?”(Cunningham 29). Cunningham is more preoccupied with the
process of writing: “Virginia moves through the park without quite
walking, she floats through it […] unbodied” (4); and reading, as Laura
Brown recalls the experience of reading Mrs. Dalloway: “Mrs. Dalloway
said she would buy the flowers herself” (35). She reads these lines in their
bedroom “[which] feels more densely inhabited, more actual, because a
character named Mrs. Dalloway is on her way to buy flowers” (37). As we
read these lines, we are not so much drawn into the world of the novel, but
reflecting rather on the process of adaptation. While Laura is reading Mrs.
Dalloway, she is using the experience of adapting to the experience of
Woolf’s novel and thereby discovering a sense of her own self-worth.
James Schiff points out that this character thus enables a different
relationship between text and reader for the novel’s audience, for “through
her [Woolf’s] presence [in the novel], Cunningham creates a metafictional
experience for his own reader [as well as for Laura], who, in effect, is
invited into the pages of The Hours” (Hardy 369). In other words, readers
can use their experience of reflecting on the differences between The
Hours and Mrs. Dalloway to (re-)construct their sense of self, and hence
go through an experience similar to that of Laura.
The film version complicates that experience still further, as we now
look at Laura through the prism of Julianne Moore’s screen persona. We
do not empathize with Laura in the same way as we do in the novel;
however, we can look at Moore’s Laura as a kind of role-model, rather in
the same way as viewers in the 1940s might have done while watching the
stars of the so-called “women’s films” of that period. Daldry has adapted
the experience of the novel to the medium of film; and thereby encouraged
us to adapt our responses in similar fashion.
As Schiff points out, however, while each narrative – Cunningham’s
novel and Daldry’s film – is very different from one another, they all
remain focused on the text of Mrs. Dalloway: “[The texts] become […]
about reading and writing and how those activities fit within the larger
context of a single day” (Hughes 367). They provide discrete perspectives
on the acts of writing, reading and experiencing a novel through
intertextuality. As Mary Joe Hughes points out, Cunningham draws
thematic parallelisms between his novel and Woolf’s novel by
including the oceanic interconnectedness between people, the life of one

human spirit animating that of another, the permeable boundaries between
life and death, and the burst bounds of time rather than simply reusing
The Hours (2002): An Unfaithful Adaptation 101
these ideas, […] he allows them to ripple out in wider and wider circles”
(353).
The effects of these circles dominate not only Cunningham’s

adaptation of Woolf’s text but also Daldry’s adaptation of Cunningham’s
novel: “Clarissa, sane Clarissa – exultant, ordinary Clarissa will go on,
loving London, loving her life of ordinary pleasures, and someone else, a
deranged poet, a visionary will be the one to die” (Cunningham 211).
Clarissa, Laura, the readers, the movie viewers -- even Woolf herself has
been affected by this transformational process.
At the end of Cunningham’s novel, some of the characters have passed
away, including Woolf and Laura. Those who are left to gather around the
table in the final scene are an editor, a producer, a student, and a librarian.
However this experience is far from being a melancholy one: if we have
understood the transformational intention of both novel and film, we
understand that all these four characters can use the experience of
encountering Woolf – in whatever form – to find a meaning for their
fragmented life. They can experience a process similar to our own, as we
read the novel or witness the film, of learning how to make sense of our
own lives through adaptation to the adapted material.
102 Chapter Ten
Works Cited
Beja, Morris. Film and Literature. New York and London: Longman,
1979. Print.
Cunningham, Michael. The Hours. London: Harper Perennial, 2006. Print.
Hardy, Sarah Boykin. “The Unanchored Self in The Hours after
Dalloway.” Studies in Contemporary Fiction 52.4 (2011): 400-411.
Print.
Hours (The). Dir. Stephen Daldry. Perf. Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman,
Julianne Moore. Paramount Pictures/ Miramax Films, 2002. Film.
Hughes, Mary Joe. “Michael Cunningham's The Hours and Postmodern
Artistic Re-Presentation.” Studies in Contemporary Fiction 45.4
(2004): 349-361. Print.
Lehmann, Courtney. Shakespeare Remains: Theater to Film, Early
Modern to Postmodern. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP. 2001. Print.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ADAPTATION OR ASSIMILATION:
ORIENTATION ISSUES
IN BHARATI MUKHERJEE’S JASMINE
FARUK KALAY AND BÜLENT TANRITANIR
Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine (1989) deals with a young woman

struggling to realize the American dream in the country desired by the
protagonist after her husband’s death in India, an experience perceived
very distinctively by critics of the novel. Jaydeep Sarangi claims that
“Mukherjee celebrates the fluid identities of the protagonist” (285), while
Mita Banerjee charges the author with betraying “the postcolonial writer’s
responsibility to resist reductive western interpretations” (124). However
we must not forget that Mukherjee penned the novel Jasmine only after
her acceptance of American citizenship; it represents a “search for and
creation of identity” (Wang 88); otherwise defined as “a bildungsroman
which traces the protagonist's growth into womanhood through various
stages, each progressively more liberating” (Kanhai 120). It is this process
of adaptation to a western culture that forms the basis of this piece.
She begins the novel with her original Indian name, Jyoti, who tries to
transcend the expectations imposed on her by her family. While her
ambitions for happiness and self-realization initially lie within the
framework of traditional wifehood, Jyoti soon perceives herself as an
exceptional child of courage and willpower (Dlaska 130). When she is
sixteen years old, she is introduced to Prakash, a good student of
engineering who desires to migrate to America. They fall in love
immediately, even though Jyoti at this point harbors little intention to
accompany him. At present all she is interested in is changing her life.
Under pressure from both family and society to have a baby at the age of
sixteen, Prakash refuses the offer in the belief that she is not old enough to
look after a baby. Rather he decides to change her lifestyle completely. Not
only does he give her the name Jasmine, but also influences her ideas
104 Chapter Eleven
about lifestyle, marriage and transformation. “We had created life. Prakash
had taken Jyoti and created Jasmine, and Jasmine would complete the
mission of Prakash. Vijh & Wife. A vision had formed” (Mukherjee 97).
However this idyllic life is abruptly discontinued with Prakash’s murder.
The bloody transformation teaches Jasmine the significance of her
possessions and the life she seeks to embrace. Bose comments: “Violence
is a key word, a leitmotif in Mukherjee’s fiction, and the ‘psychic
violence’ that she thinks is necessary for the transformation of character is
often emphasized by an accompanying physical conflict of some sort”
(53). Hence Jasmine decides to go to America to fulfill her late husband’s
will, even though the idea seems ludicrous at the start: “I must be mad!
Certainly, I was. I told them. I had sworn it before God. A matter of duty
and honor” (Mukherjee 97).
She arrives in her dreamland America but finds the experience
traumatic at first: “The first thing I saw were the two cones of a nuclear
plant, and smoke spreading from them in complicated but seemingly
purposeful patterns” (Mukherjee 107). The darker side of the country
strikes her immediately: “My first night in America was spent in a motel,
plywood over its windows, its pool bottomed with garbage sacks, and
grass growing in its parking lot” (109). The process of adaptation is a
painful one: going to the motel with the captain, a Vietnam veteran of
Vietnam, Jasmine experiences her worst night ever. Although telling him
about her deceased husband, the captain ignores her and retorts: “Don’t
tell me you ever seen a television set. Don’t lie to me about no husbands
and no television and we’ll get along real good” (112). The inevitable rape
follows, but what is most remarkable is the way Jasmine seems less
concerned with what happened to her, and more with the shower system in
the motel room:
I had never used a Western shower, standing instead of squatting, with

automatic hot water coming hard from a nozzle instead of cool water from
a hand-dipped pitcher. It seemed like a miracle that even here in a place
that looked deserted (117).
According to Faymonville, this sense of freedom enables her to do

everything: “she [Jasmine] is able to find a new morality that enables her
to leave behind those things that limit her personal freedom” (53-4).
Hence she has no qualms about murdering the captain and feeling ecstatic
afterwards; for her the motel is transformed “into a hotel; hell turned into
paradise – to me this seems very American” (Mukherjee 138). The
adaptive process for Jasmine is almost instantaneous; rather than trying to
reconcile the experience of her home culture with her day-to-day life in
Adaptation or Assimilation: Orientation Issues in Jasmine 105
America, she exchanges one identity for another, setting aside her
traditional Indian sati and wearing blue jeans instead (ironically purchased
in Delhi by her brothers (119-20). This process of transformation,
figuratively centered in the death of one’s old self and the birth of a new
self, is a motif that suffuses the book’s narrative language: sensory images
reiterate at various levels the symbolism of cyclical patterns of birth,
death, and new birth, in the context of the postcolonial immigrant
woman’s life and experiences (Parekh 118).
As the narrative unfolds, so the transformative process becomes more
complex, as Jasmine acclimatizes herself to a new culture: “I could not
admit that I had accustomed myself to American clothes disguised my
widowhood. In a T-shirt and cords” (Mukherjee 145). On the other hand
she wants to distance herself from her Indian past, “everything Jyoti-like.
To them [her Indian family], I was a widow who should show a proper
modesty of appearance and attitude. If not, it appeared I was competing
with Nirmala” (145). She totally forgets her past and endeavors to fix her
future. “An imaginary brick wall topped with barbed wire cut me off from
the past and kept me from breaking into the future” (148). Mukherjee
represents Jasmine as a role model “for other minorities to emulate” (Song
345), as she sets aside the traditions of the source-culture and adapts to the
target culture, and by doing so discovers “a resistant self” (Ramanathan,
Schlau 6). She becomes involved with an American family, adopting the
terms and phrases characteristic of their way of life: “When Wylie talked
of me on the phone, she called me her ‘caregiver.’ ‘I don’t know what I’d
do without her, Jasmine’s a real find’” (175). Her new boyfriend Taylor
becomes an ideal man and husband for her; he is someone who “didn’t
mind getting caught laughing silly. Prakash’d wanted to be infallible, and
Professorji’d acted pompous. Taylor was fun” (176). Moreover “Taylor
had teeth as crooked as mine – the first crooked teeth I’d seen in America”
(166). By falling in love with him, Jasmine starts to fulfill her American
dream: “I liked everything he said or did. I liked the name he gave me:
Jase. Jase was a woman who bought herself spangled heels and silk
chartreuse pants” (176). The most important aspect of Taylor is his
acceptance of Jasmine as she is; he does not want or try to change her: “He
didn’t want to scour and sanitize the foreignness. My being different from
Wylie or Kate didn’t scare him” (185). Life with Taylor enables her to
identify what she perceives as the brighter side of her new culture:
He smiled his crooked-toothed smile, and I began to fall in love. I mean, I

fell in love with he represented to me, a professor who served biscuits to a
servant, smiled at her, and admitted her to the broad democracy of his
joking, even when she didn’t understand it. It seemed entirely American. I
106 Chapter Eleven
was curious about his life, not repulsed. I wanted to watch, be a part of it.
He seemed wondrously extravagant, that Sunday morning (167).
As the book unfolds, so Jasmine comes to realize that life in America is

not all pleasure, and decides to get back together with Taylor. Nonetheless
there are some saving graces, as Jasmine is the best candidate to look after
both Kate and Taylor. To be a part of a “real” family is a signal for both
writer and Jasmine to remove all the obstacles between the old and new
worlds: “[B]elonging is all important, even if it means the discarding of
nostalgia in order to wholly embrace the New World” (Bose 52).
On the other hand, Jasmine is attracted to men around her: Mukherjee
depicts her as an Aphrodite-figure, the goddess of love and beauty: “One
executive bought me flowers and wine, another took me out to dinner and
asked me if I was […] otherwise engaged. I paid back professorji in a
single check” (180). The more she drifts away from her own culture, the
more American she becomes: “As she shuttles between cultural
interpretations her journey through America is aimed at escaping all
[home] cultural, social and genderist inscriptions and prescriptions which
may stand in the way of her desire for self-fulfillment” (Dlaska 144). She
meets a new man, Bud Ripplemeyer, who regards her as an exotic foreign
woman to be loved, which irritates her very much. He renames her Jane
because he cannot pronounce her name properly; and remains discontented
with her foreignness: “I don’t hold that against him. It frightens me, too”
(26). Living in a self-enclosed community in Iowa, Jasmine/ Jane feels
isolated – especially when they seem to be oblivious to her attempts to
Americanize herself. Friedman identifies this as a racist reaction “based on
ideologies of inferiority, alienness, bestiality, and/or exoticism” (110).
Nonetheless Jasmine retains her spirit and willingness to adapt, qualities
that help her “to survive and prosper in America” (Alam 110).
At the end of the novel Taylor decides to go off with Jasmine to
California – not because that part of America is better than another, but
because her future with Taylor seems rather attractive. This decision
increases her self-confidence; she “does not experience shame or guilt,
only relief, as she gives up her respectable life as caretaker to her disabled
partner, Bud” (Adams 136). The decision might seem morally
questionable, but only in terms of the values implied by American culture.
However the novel is about adaptation; those decisions taken by
individuals in order to better their lives, or to accommodate themselves to
new situations. Hence it is clear that
Mukherjee challenges the reader to make any final pronouncement on the

morality of Jyoti/Jasmine/Jase/Jane’s decision at the end of the book to
leave the paralyzed Bud while carrying his child, as no cultural values/
standards appear to be absolute and unchanging; rather, they must be
mitigated and deliberated within the context of a constantly shifting self
and that self’s relationship to increasingly destabilized notions of culture
and society (Oh 135).
The more American she becomes in her own mind, the more she
believes she has the power to determine her own values and standards. She
can be regarded as an ideal self for Mukherjee, who encourages her
readers to make their own decisions in terms of adaptation to new lives
and new experiences. This serves as an object lesson for all immigrants,
whether to America or elsewhere.
108 Chapter Eleven
Works Cited
Adams, Bella. Asian American Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press 2008. Print.
Alam, Fakrul. Bharati Mukherjee. Ed. Frank Day. New York: Twayne
Publishers 1996, Print.
Banerjee, Mita. The Chutnification of History: Salman Rushdie, Michael
Ondaatje, Bharati Muherjee and the Postcolonial Debate. Heidelberg:
Universitätsverlag C. Winter Heidelberg, 2002. Print.
Bose, Brinda. “A Question of Identity: Where Gender, Race, and America
Meet in Bharati Mukherjee.” Bharati Muhkerjee: Critical
Perspectives. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. New York: Garland Publishing
1993. 47-63. Print.
Dlaska, Andrea. Ways of Belonging: The Making of New Americans in the
Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee. West Lafayette: Purdue UP. 1999. Print.
Faymonville, Carmen. “Mukherjee’s Jasmine.” The Explicator 56.1
(1997): 53-4. Print.
Friedman, Susan Stanford. Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural
Geographies of Encounter. Princeton: Princeton UP. 1998. Print.
Kanhai, Rosanne. “Sensing Designs in History’s Muddles: Global
Feminism and the Postcolonial Novel.” Modern Language Studies 26.4
(1996): 119-130. Print.
Li, David Leiwei. Imagining the Nation: Asian American Literature and
Cultural Consent. Stanford: Stanford UP. 1998. Print.
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1989. Print.
Oh, Seiwoong. Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. New York:
Facts on File Publishing, 2007. Print.
Parekh, Pushpa N. “Telling Her Tale: Narrative Voice and Gender Roles in
Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine.” Bharati Mukherjee: Critical
Perspectives. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. New York: Garland Publishing
1993. 109-26. Print.
Ramanathan, Geetha and Stacey Schlau. “Third World Women: Texts and
the Politics of Feminist Criticisms.” College Literature 22.1 (1995): 1-
9. Print.
Sarangi, Jaydeep. “Bond without Bondage: Bharati Mukherjee and
Jhumpa Lahiri.” Contemporary Indian Writing in English: Critical
Perceptions. Ed. N. D. Chandra. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2005. 283-
94. Print.
Song, Min Hyoung. “The Children of 1965: Allegory, Postmodernism, and
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake.” Twentieth Century Literature 53.3
(2007): 345-61. Print.
Wang, Qun. “Repositing the Stars: Twentieth Century Narratives of Asian

American Immigration.” The Immigrant Experience in North American
Literature: Carving out a Niche. Ed. Katherine B. Payant and Toby
Rose. Westport: Greenwood Press 1999. 83-93. Print.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THREE HAMLETS, TWO GENTLEMEN

AND ONE TIME TO LOVE:
SHAKESPEARE ON THE CHINESE SCREEN
HUI WU
While Shakespeare was introduced to China more than hundred years

ago, by literary and theatre adaptations as well as by indigenous opera
performances, it took him surprisingly long to conquer Chinese screens.
For the general public, this happened only in 2006 when two highly
interesting Hamlet adaptations were released almost simultaneously: The
Banquet by Feng Xiaogang, followed by Hu Xuehua’s Prince of the
Himalayas, a Tibetan version of the drama.
However, there have been a few earlier examples such as the silent
film The Female Lawyer from 1927 based on The Merchant of Venice, and
A Spray of Plum Blossoms from 1931 adapted from The Two Gentlemen of
Verona. Both were made in pre-war Shanghai and are almost completely
forgotten today. Over time, there were a few more films loosely connected
to Shakespearean material, including a paraphrase of Romeo and Juliet
from 2005 named A Time to Love. It is significant that all these films were
realized in times of economic prosperity and relative cultural openness. In
this chapter, I will mainly focus on the two contemporary Hamlets. But
let’s first take a quick look at these early works that have fallen into
oblivion.
Why to adapt: A history of Shakespeare on Chinese screen

Chinese film adaptation is as old as Chinese film. The first domestic
movie, Ding Jun Shan (Conquering Jun Mountain) from 1905, was based
on a Peking opera. The first adaptation from foreign literature can be
traced back to 1913 when Alexandre Dumas’ La Dame aux Camelias was
used for a silent movie. The earliest Chinese films were imported
Three Hamlets, Two Gentlemen and One Time to Love 111
productions. What Chinese cinema goers would see were almost all
Western faces, and almost all stories were told in foreign languages. Any
Chinese faces, occasionally appearing in a few frames in the early
European and American films, were usually coarse, ugly and apathetic,
and hardly ever did they look educated and civilized (Qin 6-9). So far,
China did not have its own film industry, but that was to change soon.
National pride, cultural identity and an increasing demand for domestic
media became the driving forces for its development. Most plots were
taken from Chinese and Western literature alike. Not surprisingly,
cosmopolitan Shanghai became film’s birthplace.
After the revolution of 1911, the Bard’s humanistic plays were
regarded as a weapon against imperialism and feudalism. Theatre artists
and early filmmakers engaged in a double mission: to both develop the
domestic cultural industry and change backward society. The method of
adapting domestic and foreign literature developed rapidly during the New
Cultural Movement in the 1920s, when the Chinese film industry evolved.
This Enlightenment Movement was marked by the magazine 1HZ <RXWK
published in 1915. It promoted democracy, science, new morals and
modern Chinese instead of feudal autocracy, superstition, old morals and
classical Chinese. Shakespeare became a potential source for film makers,
because he was one of the most welcomed Western authors.
In 1927, the silent film The Female Lawyer based on The Merchant of
Venice, was released. The film does not focus on love, religion and
friendship as many Western interpretations do, nor on the conflict about
the pound of flesh, which was the Chinese title of the literary version, one
of stories in the book <LQJ*XR6KL5HQ<LQ%LDQ<DQ<X(Tales from the
Bard) by Lin Shu, who rewrote Shakespeare’s plays in Chinese prose
based on Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. Instead, the film concentrates on
Bao Qixia (Portia) and the trial scene, dramatically emphasizing the
female perspective throughout the story. A Spray of Plum Blossoms from
1931, based on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, shows similar preferences.
On the Chinese screen, the two gentlemen became “silent knights” (Huang
118), while the two ladies emerged as the leading characters. Especially
Shi Luohua (Silvia) who was portrayed as a female commandant – a
martial heroine.
Both directors Qiu Qixiang and Pu Wancang created new role models
for women. As Alexander Huang, a Chinese professor at Pennsylvania
State University has put it: “The cultural figure of the new woman is an
integral part of the contested modern nation project, embodying an urban
subjectivity in its new social image.” And he continues: “The new woman
in the film and drama of the 1930s represents the fear, promise, and perils
112 Chapter Twelve
of Chinese modernization and nation-building” (Huang 114). Apart from

the new conception of the women’s role, both films still belong to the
genre of the “old citizen film” (Yuan 53). It was very popular at that time
with its mixture of folklore, secularity, moral, common people and
entertainment. Undoubtedly, these features were direct results of the
increasing commercialization.
Unfortunately, the development of the emerging Chinese film industry
was interrupted by the Japanese invasion before the Second World War.
But even then, there were a couple of Shakespeare adaptations in the
1940s: &RQJ;LQ6XR<X, based on The Comedy of Errors, by Zhao Shuqin
in Hong Kong, and Da Fu Zhi Jia, adapted from King Lear by Tu
Guangqi, who moved the action from Shanghai to Hong Kong (Wolte 22-
30).
After the founding of the People’s Republic, Shakespeare was not seen
on screen in mainland China until the early 1980s when the country started
to open up again. However, Chinese filmmaking did not touch the Bard
while Chinese studies of Shakespeare began to catch up with their
equivalents elsewhere in the world. During the “Shakespeare Fever” in the
1980s, his plays were examined by scholars and students, and were
frequently produced on the stage. On the other hand, the few Shakespeare
movies shown in the Chinese cinema since the 1980s were Russian,
British, or American productions. For the Chinese movie industry,
Shakespeare remained absent except for a few filmic allusions or
references to his name and his works. One of the few examples is A Time
to Love, which includes scenes where the protagonists are reading
Shakespeare in Chinese translation, quoting him in their reflections on
their own life, and watching Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968).
The fate of the Chinese Romeo and Juliet is determined by the hatred of
their families during the so-called Cultural Revolution. Contrary to
expectations, this version has a happy ending – the lovers eventually
marry (Burt).
Only nowadays, Chinese film artists seem to be ready to embrace the
Bard with conditions that are right for large-scale adaptations on screen.
The market economy, the increasingly urbanized population, the
consuming society, political liberalization and globalization have set the
stage for such films. Moreover, adaptation means that a famous cultural
brand, such as a classic work of literature, can help to promote the
product. It refers to an imprinted memory of cultural symbols in the public
mind and facilitates communication and advertisement of the subject.
How to adapt: A comparison of two localized Hamlet films

In the history of Shakespeare adaptations on film, there have been
many Hamlet versions, such as the British Hamlet by Laurence Olivier in
1948, the Russian Hamlet by Grigori Kozintsev in 1964, the British-Italian
Hamlet by Franco Zeffirelli in 1990, the British Hamlet by Kenneth
Branagh in 1996 and the American Hamlet by Michael Almereyda in
2000. At first glance, it might seem that China also came up with a Hamlet
movie as early as 1948. During the short period of recovery after the war,
a studio in Shanghai released a black-and-white film called Frailty, Thy
Name Is Woman. It is tempting to claim it as China’s first Hamlet on
screen. Nonetheless, apart from its title, it shows little connection with the
monumental drama. It tells the story of a woman who marries twice and
struggles for independence. Furthermore, it falls into the “new model
woman” category and is an adaptation of Gertrude’s life rather than
Hamlet’s.
The focus of this study is on the two Hamlet films, The Banquet and
Prince of the Himalayas. Both reinvent the story and transfer it to a
specific time, culture and landscape. The Banquet was a blockbuster
movie in China, but has received widespread criticism for its apparent
commercialism. Prince of the Himalayas, on the other hand, has raised
attention amongst academics and critics and won several prizes at festivals
in Morocco, Italy and the United States. It has even been nominated for
the Golden Globe, but was not so successful in the cinemas. Both films
were based on Hamlet, but they are totally different in story, character,
picture, music and style.
To seek revenge or to forgive – that is the question. The Banquet
represents what we call a “court struggle tragedy” in Chinese. It is set in a
post-Tang kingdom in 907 AD, when a prosperous period was followed by
turmoil. Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu) and Little Wan (Zhang Ziyi) have
been lovers from their childhood. But when Little Wan grows up, her
lover’s father, the old emperor, marries her. Later on, the new emperor Li
(Ge You), who had murdered his elder brother, marries her. While Empress
Wan is getting physical satisfaction from her new husband, she still loves
the prince and protects him from the new emperor – his uncle, who wants
to kill him. Eventually, Li finds a way to get rid of his potential rival for
power and love. Believing that the prince is dead, he holds a big banquet
to celebrate what he thinks is his ultimate triumph.
But it will end in a catastrophe. Empress Wan intends to poison the
emperor with a glass of wine and then to seize the throne. But instead,
4LQJ 1 Zhou Xun), who has loved the prince in her mind all along,
114 Chapter Twelve
drinks the wine by accident. Only then the prince uncovers himself – his
life has been saved by general Yin Sun (Huang ;LDRPLQJ 4LQJ 1¶V
brother. Realizing that the empress has never loved him, the emperor kills
himself by drinking the poisonous wine on purpose. Then, Prince Wu
Luan dies after touching the poisoned sword, again by accident. Finally,
Empress Wan becomes the ruler, but soon after that, she is stabbed by an
unknown assailant.
Prince of the Himalayas tells an ancient tribal tragedy which takes
place in the western highlands of today’s Tibet. Actually, the beautiful
queen (Zomiskyd/ Zong Ji) and Kulo-ngam (Dorbrgyai/ Duo Bujie), the
king’s younger brother, have loved each other for a long time. But the king
takes her away from his brother and marries her. When he finds out that
his wife is still thinking of her lover and that Prince Lhamoklodam (Purba
Rgyal/ Pu Bajia) is not his son, but Kulo-ngam’s, the king conspires to kill
both of them. To save the lives of the queen and the prince, Kulo-ngam
kills the king. After that, he becomes the new king and marries the queen.
The funeral and the wedding are held at the same time. Kulo-ngam
becomes the new king of the Jiabo tribe in the remote and majestic
highlands. He is the equivalent of Claudius, but quite different from any
other version of Hamlet. He has killed the king not for the throne, but to
protect his lover and his son. His consciousness makes him suffer a lot
from the murder of his brother and the secret about his son. As a
thoughtful and responsible man, Kulo-ngam remains silent and endures all
the sufferings by himself. He is a good husband and father, and not a bad
king. That so many kind people have to pay the price for their love is the
real tragedy.
Parallel to that, Prince Lhamoklodam transforms into the Himalayan
Hamlet. The ghost of the dead king asks him to take revenge, while a
wolf-woman (a positive character, invented for the film) asks him to
forgive. After knowing the whole secret, Lhamoklodam neither obeys the
ghost nor the wolf-woman. He would rather die than suffer in this world.
Finally he is killed by a poisoned sword in the duel, but for the first and
also the last time, he calls Kulo-ngam “my father” at the end. The queen
drinks the poisoned wine and dies as well. After saying: “Let us be
reunited in heaven!” Kulo-ngam eventually kills himself with his sword.
Both films reinvent Shakespeare’s story in a unique way. They put the
emphasis on the tragic love affairs. Although the relationships between the
protagonists are different from Shakespeare’s play, both stories end in
catastrophe, and most of the leading characters eventually die, just like in
the source-text.
In The Banquet, the empress becomes a leading character, played by

Zhang Ziyi, a Chinese movie star. She has a close relationship with three
men; the first imposed marriage on her and is much older. The second,
whom she has to marry because of fear and self-protection, is a murderer,
but loves her deeply and even dies to fulfill her wishes. The third whom
she really loves and wants to marry and support, is a prince and then
becomes her “son.” Empress Wan is an ambitious woman with a strong
will, experiencing constant conflicts between love and power. At last, she
feels disappointed about her lover and is brave enough to challenge her
destiny, but is destroyed by her desires.
On the contrary, Prince Wu Luan is never interested in power and even
sick of it. Instead, he wants to become a great artist, a singer and dancer. In
order to avoid the cruel and ugly realities of kingship, he becomes
obsessed with classical Chinese music and dance. He loves Little Wan
more than the empress Wan because their personalities and life values
become more and more different. Here are a few lines of their dialogue as
an example:
Empress Wan: Why do you wear a mask when you perform?

Prince Wu Luan: It transports an actor to the highest state of his art.
Without a mask, happiness, anger, sorrow and joy are simply written on his
face, but with a mask, a great artist can convey to the audience the most
complex and hidden emotions.
Empress Wan: In that case, what do you see in my simple face?
Prince Wu Luan: Six parts arrogance, three parts disquiet and one part guilt
towards your late husband.
Empress Wan: You are wrong. It is disappointment … disappointment in
you. I no longer look to you to fulfill my dreams […] You are incapable of
even the most basic play-acting. Your sorrow, anger, bitterness and
uncertainty are there for all to see [...] You think hiding behind a mask can
elevate your art. The highest level is to use your own face and turn it into a
mask.
(The Banquet DVD)
The empress knows how to survive deceitfully in the courtly struggle,

while Wu Luan, an introverted artist with a pessimistic and melancholic
character, is unfit for the network of intrigues that rules the court. And he
is too weak to take revenge, even suspicious of it. When dying in his
lover’s arms, his last words are: “How good it is to die!”
In Prince of the Himalayas, there are actually two princes. The first
one, Lhamoklodam, is the son of the queen and her lover, the Tibetan
Claudius. His question is not “to be or not to be,” but to seek revenge or to
forgive. He is brave enough to take action. However, the man he wants to
116 Chapter Twelve
kill turns out to be his real father. At last, he yearns to die and departs for
heaven with strong religious belief, while Prince Wu Luan in The Banquet
longs for death because of his nihilism. The second prince in the Tibetan
film is the son of Lhamoklodam and his lover Odsaluyang (Sonamdolgar/
Suo Lang Zhu Ga), who gives birth in the river and then dies. The wolf-
woman saves the baby. In the last moments of Lhamoklodam’s life, the
boy is put in his arms – the new Prince of the Himalayas.
As far as the aesthetics is concerned, both films appear very stylish.
The Banquet is dominated by three colors: red, black and white, with red
symbolizing the empress’s desires; black representing emperor Li’s evil
character; and white standing for the prince’s innocence and purity.
Occasionally, a little dark green signifies life and love, which expresses
4LQJ1¶VJRRGZLVKHV )RULQVWDQFH WKH ODVW VKRWRI WKH ILOP VKRZV WKH
green leaves on the surface of water in a vase, and then the dagger with the
blood of the empress is thrown into it.
The images of the palace enclosed with high and heavy walls and the
ceremonies held in it show the worship of the royal power. The cameras
quite often shoot from a bird’s eye view so that the people in the palace
seem to live in a deep and cold well, though the decoration is elegant and
luxurious. All this gives us an impressive example of ancient Chinese
civilization. The light effect is usually somber and gloomy, evoking a
rather depressing mood and creating a romantic, but tragic atmosphere.
Prince of the Himalayas takes us to an even more exotic environment.
Instead of the state of Denmark, something is wrong in the kingdom of
Jiabo. We plunge into an archaic world, brought to life by Tibetan
professional and non-professional actors in their own costume and
language. Most of the film takes place outside with strong light, bright
colors, wide views and angles. We witness not only its beautiful sceneries
like high mountains with snow and crystal-clear lakes, but also its
traditional rituals such as sky, fire and water burials. People seem to live
there in harmony with nature. In such a pure environment, noble thoughts
can thrive.
Music plays an important role in both films. Tan Dun, a world-class
musician, is the composer of The Banquet. The prince in the film is
himself both a dancer and a singer. He favors a rather sad and sentimental
Yue Ren Song, based on a legend from ancient times. So does his lover,
who expresses her feelings by singing the same song:
What blessed night is this?

Drifting down the River Qian.
What auspicious day is this?
Dreaming beside my Prince.
Too bashful to stare,

A secret I can’t share.
My heart fills with longing
To know you, dear Prince.
Trees live on mountains and branches live on trees,
My heart lives for your heart but you don’t see me.
(The Banquet DVD)
While the old Yue Ren Song had a happy end, the Prince’s one is tragic. Its
sorrowful melody, which is played on traditional Chinese instruments,
echoes in the palace. Curiously, Feng Xiaogang also uses a modern song
with a popular melody to summarize the tragedies at the end of the film, as
most television dramas do.
The music for Prince of the Himalayas has been written by He
Xuntian, professor at the Shanghai Conservatory and also a distinguished
composer. He uses traditional Tibetan music from monasteries, evoking
archaic and spiritual spheres. The theme song “Holy Incense” with
Buddhist incantations has even been called a “song from heaven” by some
enthusiasts. The text is deliberately simple and repetitive:
A sea of faces
Hong-ma-ni-bei-bei-hong (= Om mani padme hum)
But I can not see my lover
He is gone
Hong-ma-ni-bei-bei-hong ...
(Prince of the Himalayas DVD)
The music is lyrical and dynamic, particularly in the love and duel scenes.
Besides heavy instruments, such as Tibetan drums and trombones, He
Xuntian also uses electronic music, but based on ancient tunes that are
corresponding with the filmic moments.
As with both films, music and color settings as well as other filmic
details match the general designs, which pay more attention to the local
culture than to their source-text, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Both adaptations
not only transfer Shakespeare’s play from stage to screen, but also from
Europe into East Asia. Both films considerably change the story,
particularly when it comes to the question of justice and revenge. The
creativity of both The Banquet and The Prince is that they modify the plot
by rewriting the play’s structure and the relations of the protagonists. Both
are essentially psychological studies. The Banquet puts the emphasis on
the negative feelings and temptations of power, whereas Prince of the
Himalayas eventually overcomes hatred and teaches love.
118 Chapter Twelve
Transforming Shakespeare’s universal image into the Chinese context

demands localizing strategies from the filmmakers. They have to take the
original on a journey to the East. Let us look at a few examples of
“easternizing” maneuvers as seen in the two films in question. In East
Asian cultures, the inner struggle is more important than the fight against
external forces. Both films reflect Chinese philosophy and Confucian
principles. For instance, in Chinese tradition, it is unthinkable that a son
falls openly in love with his mother, or a man with his sister-in-law. As a
result, dealing with the love relations between the male and female
protagonists, the filmmakers have to adopt the motive of “eternal love”
from childhood on, which is common in classical Chinese literature. Feng
has chosen a woman as the leading character to tell the story from an
unusual perspective – just like his predecessors did in the silent films. This
also allows him to turn his attention to female beauty, one of the classic
characteristics of local Chinese cultures. Moreover, the film elaborates on
the tragic fate of beauty, as in the long feudal history, women hardly ever
gained power or got involved in political matters. In a man’s world,
empress Wan can only have a tragic end.
While the director of The Banquet has to deal with the Confucian
philosophy, Hu Xuehua has to handle the religious elements carefully in
his easternizing of Shakespeare. These directors and their audiences may
approach tragic ending and death differently from what the Bard offers.
The Prince adds the Buddhist concept of afterlife to the story so that
Lhamoklodam decides to die instead of obeying the will of the dead king.
In return, the baby prince is born. This treatment is akin to a typical
Eastern concept of tragedy: instead of ultimate death, we see rebirth, hope
and the return of life. When Shakespeare’s Hamlet dies, the curtain falls.
But in the Tibetan adaptation, the prince lives in his heir so that life is an
endless circle, and love eternal.
The two Hamlet adaptations made in China tell their stories with great
virtuosity and show full mastery of film as a comprehensive, holistic
media. In return, their audiences took equal pleasure in receiving the films.
Primarily both the filmmakers and the audience enjoyed being attracted by
something familiar (a piece of world literature). At the same time, both
parties are exposed to something unfamiliar (remote cultures in
contemporary cinema) that provides entertainment, inspiration and
surprises. They are dealing with a dialectical relationship between the
well-known and the unknown, between repetition and creation, between
fidelity and innovation. Since both films refer to an author that is known
worldwide, the innovation they demonstrate seems to be checked against
notions of fidelity. From that perspective, both films might seem to fall
short of Shakespeare’s literary genius and to abuse him for commercial

purposes. Certainly, they do not show much fidelity to the author and his
works.
However, since the cinema is, according to Frederic Jameson, “a
product of the most sophisticated forms of industrial production” (Jameson
xiii), it relies heavily on the market. Both movies are examples of the
commercialization and internationalization of Chinese cinema after the
country has entered the global film market. As products of the post-
modern era, both films show fidelity to the media, the audience and the
market. The producers’ big investment – fourteen and twenty million
dollars respectively – was not meant to serve Shakespeare; nor have they
made film l’art pour l’art, but for economic success. Nevertheless,
Shakespeare is not a loser in the postmodern game. These two adaptations
make a Chinese contribution to the global entertainment industry; they
enrich and popularize the Bard’s heritage. To attract both domestic and
foreign viewers, they feature breathtaking landscapes, colorful cultural
elements and exotic mysteries, catering to a mainstream audience with
nostalgic or folkloristic curiosity (Yang). By successfully doing so, they
once again prove Shakespeare’s unbreakable universal genius. The myth
must go on.
120 Chapter Twelve
Works Cited
Banquet (The) (Ye Yan). Dir. Feng Xiaogang. Perf. Zhang Ziyi, Ge You,
Daniel Wu. Huayi Brothers and Media Asia Films, 2006. DVD.
Burt, Richard. “Alluding to Shakespeare in L’Appartement, The King is
Alive, Wicker Park, A Time to Love, and University of Laughs: Digital
Film, Asianization, and the Transnational Film Remake.” Shakespeare
<HDUERRN 17: Shakespeare and Asia. Eds. Lingui Yang and Douglas
Brooks. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010. 45-78. Print.
&RQJ;LQ6XR<X (The Comedy of Errors). Dir. Zhu Ji and Zhao Shuqin.
3HUI/LDQJ;LQJER0D6KL]HQJ+RQJ[LDQ1+RQJ.RQJ'D*XDQ
Sheng Pian Co., Ltd, 1940. Film.
Da Fu Zhi Jia (King Lear). Dir. Tu Guangqi. Perf. Wang Danfeng. Zhong
Hua Film Corporation Co., Ltd, 1944. Film.
Ding Jun Shan (Conquering Jun Mountain). Dir. Ren Qingtai. Perf. Tan
Xinpei. Fengtai Photograph Studio, 1905. Film.
Female Lawyer (The) 1 / 6KL 'LU 4Lu Qixiang. Perf. Hu Die, Li
Pingqian. Tianyi Film Company, 1927. Film.
Frailty, Thy Name Is Woman (Zi Mei Jie). Dir. Zheng Xiaoqiu and Hong
Shen. Perf. Shu Xiuwen, Diao Guangtan and Shu Shi. Producer
Unknown,1948. Film.
Hamlet. Dir. Michael Almereyda. Perf. Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan,
Bill Murray. Miramax Films, 2000. Film.
—. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Perf. Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie, Billy
Crystal. Renaissance Films/ Columbia Pictures, 1996. Film.
—. Dir. Grigori Kozintsev and Iosif Shapiro. Perf. Innokenty
Smoktunovsky, Mikhail Nazvanov, Elze Radzinya. Lenfilm, 1964.
Film.
—. Dir. Laurence Olivier. Perf. Laurence Olivier, Basil Sydney, Eileen
Herlie. Rank Film Distributors Ltd/ Two Cities Films, 1948. Film.
—. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, Alan Bates.
Warner Bros., 1990. Film.
Huang, Alexander C.Y. Chinese Shakespeare. New York: Columbia UP.
2009. Print.
Jameson, Frederic. The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the
World System. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. Print.
Lin, Shu. <LQJ *XR 6KL 5HQ <LQ %LDQ <DQ <X (Tales from the Bard).
Shanghai: The Commercial Press 1904. Print.
New Camelias. Asia Film and Drama Company, 1913. Film.
Prince of the Himalayas (The) (Xi Ma La Ya Wang Zi). Dir. Sherwood Hu

(Hu Xuehua). Perf. Pu Bajia, Zong Ji, Duo Bujie. Shanghai Film
Group, Shanghai Film Studios and HUS Entertainment, 2006. DVD.
Qin, Xiging. Euro-American Film and Early Chinese Film. Beijing: China
Movie Press, 2008. Print.
Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Leonard Whiting, Olivia
Hussey, Milo O'Shea. Paramount Pictures, 1968. Film.
Spray of Plum Blossoms (Yi Jian Mei). Dir. Bu Wancang. Perf. Ruan
Lingyu, Lin Chuchu, Gao Zhanfei and Li Lili. Lianhua Film Company,
1931. Film.
Time to Love (A) (Qing Ren Jie). Dir. Huo Jianqi. Perf. Zhao Wei, Lu Yi,
Song Xiaoying. China Film Corporation Beijing Film Studio/ Beijing
Starlight International Media Co., Ltd, 2005. Film.
Wolte, Isabel. Research about Chinese Films Adapted from Foreign
Stories. Diss. Beijing Film Academy, 2009. Print.
Yang, Lingui. “Shakespeare’s Cultural Capital Made in China: From Pre-
modern to Post-modern.” 6KDNHVSHDUH<HDUERRN6KDNHVSHDUHDQG
Asia. Eds. Lingui Yang and Douglas Brooks. Lewiston, NY: Edwin
Mellen Press, 2010. 79-100. Print.
Yuan, Qinfeng. The Cultural Tense of Black-and-White Films — Analysis
of Early Chinese Films 1922-1936. Shanghai: Sanlian Press, 2009.
Print.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
OR IMAGE OF THAT HORROR:

THE APOCALYPTIC VISIONS
OF PETER BROOK AND AKIRA KUROSAWA
PETER E. S. BABIAK
Although “We might think of an apocalypse as an ominous, prophetic

revelation of an imminent, ultimate, cosmic cataclysm that descends in a
grandiose and climactic manner in which the reign of evil is doomed and a
final judgment raises the righteous to life” (5). Diane Sippl defines
“apocalypse as simply as this: the end of the world as we know it,” noting:
“What is operative is devastation and loss [...] it is [...] the irretrievability
that makes it apocalyptic — the personal and social incapacity to regain
what has been lost, even if afforded the ground for beginning again” (5).
Few would disagree that King Lear is intended by Shakespeare to
represent an apocalyptic vision. Many critics agree that the play-text
exemplifies several characteristics associated with a vision of the end of
the world as we know it. Jan Kott writes: “The exposition of King Lear
shows a world that is to be destroyed,” (103), and summarizes the
irretrievable devastation and loss thus: “this is a morality play in which
everyone will be destroyed: noble characters along with the base ones, the
persecutors with the persecuted, the torturers with the tortured” (121).
Although Kott’s reading of the play-text represents a post Second World
War European perspective, Frank Kermode argues that the play-text would
also have been seen as an apocalyptic vision in the Elizabethan context for
which it was created (1253).
The performance history of Shakespeare’s play-text demonstrates the
validity of Kott’s and Kermode’s observations regarding the magnitude of
the events depicted in the play. According to Kott, Shakespeare’s play-text
reappears on stage in the nineteenth century because “To the romantic
theatre, King Lear fitted perfectly [...] as a melodrama [...] in keeping with
the romantic style of acting” (100-101) in which “Suffering purified Lear
The Apocalyptic Visions of Peter Brook and Akira Kurosawa 123
and restored his tragic greatness” (101). Likewise the apocalyptic themes
of King Lear resonate with a twentieth century audience; although the
play’s socio-historical priorities are not as easily transferrable. Among
industrialized nations in the twentieth century, issues of succession are not
as critical as they would have been to Jacobean audiences. Kott also sees a
problem of psychological verisimilitude, stating that to a twentieth century
audience:
The exposition of King Lear seems preposterous [...] A great and powerful
king holds a competition of rhetoric among his daughters as to which one
of them will best express her love for him, and makes the division of his
kingdom depend on its outcome. He does not see or understand anything:
Regan's and Goneril's hypocrisy is all too evident. Regarded as a person, a
character, Lear is ridiculous, naive and stupid. When he goes mad, he can
only arouse compassion, never pity and terror (102).
The challenge faced by Peter Brook and Akira Kurosawa, in adapting

King Lear for the cinema, was to dramatize the play-text in a manner that
would engage the sensibilities of a mainstream North American/European
cinema audience in the case of Brook’s film, and of a Japanese and/or
international audience in the case of Kurosawa’s film. These adaptations
successfully mediate Shakespeare’s apocalyptic vision with the socio-
historical priorities of their intended audiences, simultaneously meeting
Sippl’s criteria of presenting their apocalyptic visions in a “questioning”
rather than a nihilistic manner.
In his preface to Kott’s Shakespeare: Our Contemporary, Brook notes
that he had met Kott and remained in contact with him (ix): Dennis
Kennedy comments that the director liked Kott on account of Kott’s
“misanthropic vision [that seemed] […] intensely relevant to postwar
Europe where the nightmares of the absurd continued to be enacted” (175).
Many critics agree that the Kott-inspired use of costume and mise-en-
scène are central elements:
The animal-skin costumes, the flames in the hearth, the landscape in the
exterior shots – all these suggest stasis rather than process. They indicate
the relationship and the distinction between man and beast, and the
hostility of bleak ‘nature’ [...] the bleak expanse of snow-covered
undulations presents a pre-eminently static image; one of unrelieved bitter
desolation” (Davies 144-5).
The map of England used in the opening throne room sequence is

drawn not on parchment or paper but rather on an animal skin. As Lear
(Paul Scofield) rises from his throne in anger to pronounce banishment on
124 Chapter Thirteen
Cordelia (Anne-Lise Gabold) and Kent (Tom Fleming), the combination of

his hunched back with a bear-skin draped over it gives the audience an
impression of a great hulking bear – an image which Brook’s camera
lingers over for several seconds, firmly seating this animalistic impression
of Lear in the minds of the audience. Goneril’s (Irene Worth’s) castle
appears in exterior shots to be constructed of stone, and in interior shots
appears to be constructed of a mixture of stone, mud, and thatch. These
elements of costume and mise-en-scène interact to produce a vision of a
world that has just barely become civilized, its characters just perceptibly
removed from their animal origins.
There is further critical consensus regarding Brook’s heavily stylized
use of cinematography, editing, and sound. Buhler finds that “Brook
employs several distancing and disorienting techniques throughout the
film” (139), part of an attempt to “declare independence from the
constraints of page and stage and to make a genuine effort at converting
the Shakespearean experience into a cinematic idiom” (Rothwell 217).
Three sequences in the film which would ostensibly indicate a movement
in the plot – those of Goneril and Regan (Susan Engel), of Gloucester
(Alan Webb), Edgar (Robert Lloyd) and Edmund (Ian Hogg), and of Lear
and his Fool (Jack MacGowran), traveling in their caravans to disparate
destinations – are photographed and edited in a manner in which the
transitions between the cutaway exterior shots of the caravans, and the
interior shots of the characters conversing in their carriages are abrupt and
unnatural, giving the viewer a feeling of disconnection. One sequence
begins with the camera panning right to left and then left to right across a
static crowd of people who appear jammed together in the frame. They
stand motionless and frozen in place and expression, however their facial
tics, breathing, and blinking demonstrate that this is not a freeze frame
shot. The shot is disrupted by intertitles showing the opening credits. After
the second interruption, the camera adopts a pattern of highly random
tracking motions across the faces in this crowd. During Lear’s speech from
the heath, in-focus shots of Lear’s full face timed to coincide with flashes
of lightning are intercut with out-of-focus shots of the darkened heath. As
the scene progresses, images are increasingly divorced from dialogue, and
the cinematic convention of the axis of action is violated by shots of
Lear’s right profile intercut with shots of Lear’s left profile. As Edgar
relates the history of Poor Tom as a serving man who “did the deed of
darkness with his mistress” to Lear, shots of Edgar from two angles are
intercut – a main close shot of Edgar which is out-of-focus, with a low-
angle in-focus mid-shot timed to coincide with the booming of the
thunder. These two shots are further intercut with extremely tight out-of-
focus shots of fragments of Lear’s face. During the mock trial scene, shots
of Goneril and Regan are intercut with shots of Lear denouncing them,
suggesting that he is hallucinating. As he finishes denouncing them, an
intercut shot of Cordelia suggests a further hallucination.
Brook employs juxtaposition of contradictory images consistently
throughout the film to suggest a disparity between the perceptions of the
characters and the realities that they encounter. Audaciously violating the
codes of illusionist continuity editing and cinematography, Brook creates a
cinematic idiom which represents both the outer appearances and the
individual psychological states of his characters. Regan’s statement “yet
he hath ever but slenderly known himself,” can be applied to the majority
of the characters that populate this fractured and fragmented world. Just as
the heath scene depicts the outer storm as a representation of Lear’s inner
psychological state, the cinematic and editing techniques of this film allow
the audience to experience the world of this film as the characters
experience the world of this film. Peter Holland writes:
It [the sequence] is moving and powerful, the language of the scene and the
work of the camera perfectly married to chart the coming together of the
characters, the translation from text to film performance fully
accomplished. (64-65)
Brook uses montage techniques to emphasize the psychological

isolation of characters, and uses mise-en-scène techniques to establish
psychological connections between characters. In the opening throne room
sequence, as Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia give their declarations to Lear,
and as Lear banishes Kent and Cordelia, Goneril’s declaration is filmed in
shallow focus with Cordelia visible over her left shoulder, emphasizing the
disparity of the realities which they experience. A shallow-focus over the
shoulder shot of Cordelia’s back with Lear visible in the distance
accompanies his utterance that “nothing will come of nothing,” and Brook
pans from a shot of Lear and Kent together in the frame to a shot of Kent
isolated in the frame as Kent is banished. Similarly, a long tracking shot
throw the exterior of Goneril’s castle follows Lear and Kent together in the
frame as Kent – in his guise as Caius the servant – re-establishes his
relationship with Lear, just as a long tracking shot follows Edmund
through Gloucester’s castle as he visits the dying Cornwall. Voiceover
narration is also used by Brook to establish connections between
characters. Edgar’s “World, world, oh world!” voiceover is answered by
Gloucester’s “As flies to wanton boys” voice over, signifying a renewed
relationship between these characters as they reunite to facilitate their
escape.
The central dynamic of Brook’s King Lear is founded on a dichotomy

between people in narcissistic isolation versus people in altruistic
connection. After the blinding of Gloucester, Cornwall is stabbed by a
servant who is then bludgeoned to death by Regan. Brook depicts the
bludgeoning by showing only Regan in the frame, her face twisted with
rage as she flails the off-screen servant. By placing only Regan in the
frame, Brook reveals her egocentrism and narcissism; all she wants to do
is to kill the servant, and gratify that impulse. Brook intercuts this
sequence with an image of another servant who watches this dual murder
and mutilation with a blank expression on his face, suggesting that he feels
no emotional connection between himself and the events that he is
witnessing. Emotionally unaffected by two murders and the mutilation of
Gloucester occurring within fifteen feet of him in less than three minutes,
he maintains his posture of isolation. Conversely, at the conclusion of the
film, we are presented with a series of images of the dying Lear dropping
out of the frame inter-cut with images of Albany (Cyril Cusack), Kent, and
Edgar giving their final utterances. Brook here presents one shot which
pans from a close up of Albany to a close-up of Kent, then Edgar; this is
intercut with a static shot of the dying Lear as he drops out of the frame.
Albany, Kent, and Edgar are here united in their reaction to Lear’s demise
by the panning motion of the camera inter-cut with images of the dying
Lear. This final intercutting of two stylistically disparate shots serves to
temper Brook’s apocalyptic vision with a hope of people being able to
overcome their narcissistic impulses and form genuine connections with
one another. This leaves the film swinging on a hinge of hope, as do
apocalyptic films which perform what Sippl believes to be the
“questioning” function.
The conclusion of Kurosawa’s Ran is equally complex and ambivalent,
despite the humankind on the precipice reading that seems to be favored
by North American and European critics. John Collick writes:
The blind man is tapping his way towards a cliff edge. He stumbles and
jerks back from the gulf. The scroll of Buddha falls from his hand to lie,
opened, on the ground. The camera then draws back, showing the tiny
figure in the midst of a barren landscape (186).
Although he asserts that Tsurumaru (Takeshi Nomura) is on the edge of

a cliff, Kurosawa has taken pains throughout this film to establish that
Tsurumaru is on the rampart of the ruins of his family’s castle, witnessing
the funeral procession of the man who has blinded him, murdered most of
his family, destroyed his castle, and who is indirectly responsible for the
death of Lady Sue (Yoshiko Miyazaki). Tsurumaru is one of the few
characters in the film who has a realistic orientation to the world around
him. When Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) is brought to
Tsurumaru’s hut, Tsurumaru recalls Hidetora’s cruelty, stating:
I try to be like my sister. To pray to Buddha, and rid myself of hatred. But
not one day do I forget! Not one night do I sleep in peace! I regret I cannot
welcome you as befits the Great Lord. Luckily [...] my sister gave me a
flute. I will play for you. Lacking anything else, I give you hospitality of
the heart. It is the only pleasure left to me (Ran DVD).
In sheltering Hidetora and playing the flute for him, (in essence
offering the man who has destroyed his family and blinded him all he has
left to offer) Tsurumaru is demonstrating a form of compassion which
encompasses both the idealism of Buddhism as well as an understanding
of his own limitations as a human being. The final shot of the film depicts
him as still having the capacity to jerk back from the edge of the rampart,
despite having been blinded, having his castle destroyed, and his entire
family murdered.
It is Hidetora who responds to every crisis that he is faced with in the
film by attempting to withdraw from reality. In the opening sequence of
the film, Hidetora feigns sleep in order to avoid responding to the
implication. When this strategy of avoidance fails, and Hidetora is yet
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rudeness, he banishes Saburo and Tango Hirayama (Masayuki Yui) in an
attempt to make the problem go away. Hidetora realizes his error when he
learns that Taro Takatora Ichimonji (Akira Terao) and Jiro Masatora
Ichimonji (Jinpachi Nezu) have forbidden any peasants from helping him
on pain of death, yet he refuses to go to Saburo and seek forgiveness
despite being urged to do so by Tango. Madness, a different form of
avoidance of reality, allows Hidetora to escape the battle at the third castle
without being killed or committing suicide. When Saburo finally finds him
on the plain, Hidetora admits that he has been “a stupid old fool” (Ran
DVD). At this point, although Hidetora begins to face reality and to mend
his relationship with his son, he does so far too late. As “rudeness” is a
social construction, the social rules of feudal Japan, as depicted here by
Kurosawa, serve to perpetuate a system of treachery and violence rather
than contain it. Collick argues that:
Japanese intellectuals were able to 'read' Western culture according to their

own codes of meaning with little interference from colonial ideology. Once
we recognise this [...] it underlines the crucial fact we must bear in mind
when dealing with Kurosawa's films: Shakespeare in Japan is, and always
has been, an essentially Japanese tradition (161).
Honor, obligation, and ethics are stressed time and time again in
Japanese culture; it is these ideas that determine the structure of
Kurosawa’s film. It is set in a specific historical period “the Sengoku Jidai
or ‘Age of the Country at War’ (1392-1508)” (Hapgood 235), and shows
how dishonorable acts always have violent consequences. Kurosawa’s
depiction of the battle at the third castle represents a breathtaking
cinematic achievement, “an extraordinary depiction of carnage and
bloodshed, counterpointed with the sight of Hidetora sitting distraught,
inside the stronghold” (Holland 63). Words are inadequate to describe this
remarkable sequence with its exquisitely balanced and composed images
of archers lying dead in their turrets riddled with arrows, the vibrant colors
of the banners that the soldiers use to identify themselves, the beauty of
the flames that consume the third castle, and the delicate pink color of the
smoke that erupts from the soldiers’ muskets as they decimate Hidetora’s
entourage with gunfire. This sequence is initiated by Hidetora’s retainer
claiming – as he dies from his wounds – that “we truly are in Hell” (Ran
DVD). The images that follow this appraisal certainly reinforce it.
Kurosawa’s use of sound does not directly correspond with the visual
images he gives us on screen; we listen instead to wistful music played by
an orchestra that seems to be comprised almost entirely of strings.
Although Ran utilizes the realistic/illusionist mode of film-making,
Kurosawa’s use of this mode is here akin to the realistic/illusionist
approach utilized by Stanley Kubrick. Although – like Kubrick –
Kurosawa never once reminds his audience that they are merely watching
a film, Kurosawa’s use of color and composition – like Kubrick’s – is
extremely stylized. Ran’s colors are invariably garish and vibrant, its
compositions symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing. The effect of this
visual strategy is to make the film beautiful to watch, which forces the
viewer to contrast the aesthetics of Kurosawa’s presentation with the
elements of Kurosawa’s narrative. Buhler agrees in characterizing
Kurosawa’s use of color as “vivid,” while posing the question that: “The
strangeness of the beauty […] rests in the savagery and desolation of the
events depicted: how can these sights so horrifying or heartrending be
beautiful?” (172).
Ran also frequently conflates the myth systems of feudal Japan with
those familiar to Western culture. Regarding the sequence of the battle at
the third castle, Buhler writes:
Only at the moment when Taro, the eldest of Hidetora's sons, is killed at
the order of Jiro, the middle brother, does the soundtrack provide the actual
sounds and screams of war. Kurosawa has linked the West's most
influential story of the final conflagration with its most enduring account
of the Primal Murder, Cain's assault on Abel (173).
When initially warning Jiro to beware of Lady Kaede’s (Mieko

Harada’s) influence, Shuri Kurogane (Hisashi Igawa) characterizes Kaede
in accordance with the terms of a recognizable Japanese myth:
There are many foxes hereabouts. It is said they take human form. Take
care, my lord. They often impersonate women. In Central Asia a fox
seduced King Pan Tsu and made him kill 1000 men. In China he married
King Yu and ravaged the land. In Japan, as Princess Tamamo, he caused
great havoc at court. He became a white fox with nine tails. Then they lost
trace of him. Some people say he settled down here [pointing at Kaede]. So
beware, my lord, beware (Ran DVD).
Kurogane’s warning that Kaede is a shape-shifting fox is consistent

both with Japanese legend and with Western mythologies concerning
vampires, who can shift shape into wolves or bats. Another element of the
Western mythology of the vampire is their ability to hypnotize their
victims, which in the context of Ran accounts for the ease with which
Kaede manipulates Taro. When Kurogane murders Kaede, the wall behind
her is literally coated with the blood that spews from the wound. Ran can
be seen as an apocalyptic vision rooted in a critique of feudal Japan, which
moves outwards from that specific context, incorporating elements of
Western culture in a larger critique of contemporary society. Melo-Thaiss
notes that:
at the moment that Saburo seems able to transcend the flow of violence by
rescuing Hidetora and fulfilling his father's desire for peace, he will
become yet another victim of the inevitable cycle of human brutality. The
futility of action is a bleak conclusion [...] resulting in the depiction of
humanity's inability to exert agency in the hopes of a meaningful existence
(12-13).
Collick disagrees, stating that “Ran, despite the carnage and suffering,
ends with an optimistic critique of the traditional concepts of
transcendence, insanity and forgiveness” (181). The film ends not with the
funeral procession of Hidetora and Saburo, but with an image of the
blinded Tsurumaru, alone atop the ramparts of his ruined castle,
unwittingly witnessing the funeral procession of the man who had
destroyed his family. Although his distance from the Buddha is
emphasized in the final scene, it can be argued that this distance signifies
the importance of being aware both of spiritual enlightenment, and of the
realities of human existence.
In his critique of historiography, Hayden White argues that historians

pursue strategies of selection very similar to those of poets:
the process of fusing events, whether imaginary or real, into a

comprehensible totality […] [employs] the same modalities of representing
relationships in words, that the poet or novelist uses (125).
Just as White argues that historiography is primarily a literary practice,

it can be argued that literary practices serve a historical function.
Adaptations of a seminal play-text serve a function of displacing the text
from its immediate socio-historical context and re-historicizing that text.
An adaptation represents “always not only a deviation from one possible,
proper meaning, but also a deviation towards another meaning,
conception, or ideal of what is right and proper and true ‘in reality’”(White
2). Peter Brook’s King Lear and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran appropriate this
powerful cultural token into their adaptor’s specific socio-historical
context (twentieth century European cinema and post-Second World War
thought in the case of Brook’s film; twentieth century Western cultures and
traditional Japanese mythology in the case of Kurosawa’s film). Like
Shakepeare’s apocalyptic vision, their visions represent the end of the
world as it is known in the diegesis of their films in their use of
Shakepeare’s play-text to query their own immediate socio-historical
contexts. Through openly confronting the issues they perceive as crucial to
their immediate socio-historical contexts, both films express a hope for a
better future of humankind. Both film-makers are audacious in their
appropriation of Shakespeare to represent their own views, in effect
making the claim that Shakespeare speaks for their personal view – a view
which, in either case, addresses both the challenges and the possibilities of
the culture that each of these directors is a product of, producing a vision
of both a specific apocalypse and a larger possibility for positive social
growth.
Dr. Babiak dedicates this article to the memory of his aunt and uncle,
Dean and Elsie Dunlop.
Works Cited
Brook, Peter. “Preface.” Jan Kott, Shakespeare: Our Contemporary.
London: Methuen & Co, Ltd., 1965. ix-xi. Print.
Buhler, Stephen M. Shakespeare in the Cinema: Ocular Proof. Albany
NY: State U. of New York Press, 2002. Print.
Collick, John. Shakespeare, Cinema, and Society. Manchester: Manchester
UP. 1989. Print.
Davies, Anthony. Filming Shakespeare’s Plays: The Adaptations of
Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Peter Brook, Akira Kurosawa.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1988. Print.
Hapgood, Robert. “Kurosawa’s Shakespeare Films: Throne of Blood, The
Bad Sleep Well, and Ran.” Shakespeare and the Moving Image. Eds.
Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.
234-49. Print.
Holland, Peter. “Two-Dimensional Shakespeare: King Lear on Film.”
Shakespeare and the Moving Image. Eds. Anthony Davies and Stanley
Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. 50-68. Print.
Kennedy, Dennis. Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-
Century Performance. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 2001. Print.
Kermode, Frank. “Introduction.” The Riverside Shakespeare: King Lear.
Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974.
1249-54. Print.
King Lear. Dir. Peter Brook. Perf. Paul Scofield, Irene Worth. Filmways,
Inc., 1971. Film.
Kott, Jan. Shakespeare: Our Contemporary. London: Methuen and Co.
Ltd., 1965. Print.
Melo-Thaiss, Janet. “An Earthly Lament: Akira Kurosawa’s Kumonosu
djô and Ran.” Unpub. Paper. York University. 2005. Print.
Ran. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Perf. Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao. Greenwich
Film Productions/ Herald Ace, 1985. DVD.
Rothwell, Kenneth S. “Representing King Lear on Screen: From
Metatheatre to ‘Meta-Cinema.” Shakespeare and the Moving Image.
Eds. Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1994. 211-33. Print.
Sippl, Diane. “Tomorrow Is My Birthday: Placing Apocalypse in
Millennial Cinema.” CineAction 53 (2000): 2-21. Print.
White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism.
Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP. 1978. Print.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BRAZILIAN TRANSLATIONS AND ADAPTATIONS

OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB’S
TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE (1807)
MARILISE R. BERTIN
This chapter analyzes the reception of William Shakespeare’s works in

Brazil via narrative translations and adaptations of the Tales from
Shakespear written by Charles and Mary Lamb and first published in
1807. It will begin with some reflections on the term “translation” as an
umbrella term, and its relationship to “adaptation,” and subsequently
examine such terms in relation to Brazilian versions of the Lambs’ tales. It
will look at how the source-text has been transformed in different versions
through an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet afterwards. This will help us to
discover what kinds of “Shakespeares” reach Brazilian readers.
William Shakespeare is a famous example of an English Renaissance
playwright whose source-material was particularly diverse. Romeo and
Juliet (1594) may have been based on a number of the sources that follow,
just to mention a few. There was one, written by Masuccio di Salerno,
which appeared in the Novellino – a collection of tales first printed at
Naples in 1476 – where a similar event occurred in Siena instead of
Verona. The same story was narrated by Luigi da Porto about fifty years
afterwards. He called the hero and heroine Romeo and Giulietta. The
recently discovered story of the two noble lovers, written by Da Porto, had
all the main elements of Shakespeare’s tragedy: the scenery in Verona, two
families which were enemies, (called Montecchi and Capelletti), and a
double suicide in the end Luigi da Porto’s ‘Giuletta e Romeo.”) Another
Italian, Matteo Bandello, adapted freely the story for his Novelle, which
was launched in 1554. Five years later, the story was translated into
French by Pierre Boisteau de Lunay and it appeared in the Histoires
Tragiques, by François de Belleforest (“Shakespeare’s Sources.”)
Brazilian Translations and Adaptations of Tales from Shakespeare 133
The nearest source to the English Bard, however, which was extremely
popular by the time Shakespeare would write his play, as it had more than
one edition in a short period of time, might have been the long poem
written by Arthur Brooke (1562), named The Tragical Hystorie of Romeus
and Juliet (Brooke). It offered a lot of information about Verona, their
inhabitants and their social habits; facts which must have contributed to
the creation of Shakespeare’s play. In Brooke’s poem, there are all the
characters present in the Shakespearean play, except for Mercutio, the
bawdy character that was created by Shakespeare. But when comparing
both texts, Brooke’s and Shakespeare’s, there is a significant change in the
development and ending of the plot, as Brooke turns the poem into a moral
lesson to those who abandon themselves to violent passions, whereas
Shakespeare emphasizes the hatred nourished by the families and brings in
the bawdy comic Mercutio, who fills in the first half of the play with
strong eroticism (21-2). Shakespeare changed genre (poetry and narrative
tales and novella were transformed into play text), added a strong and new
character, changed many characters’ personalities and attitudes (the nun
became more comic). The famous English playwright altered the plot of
the sources of many of his other plays as well.
How should we term his works: are they “translations,” “adaptations,”
or both? Perhaps we should consider instead the purpose of the translation;
for this reason I prefer to draw on Hans J. Vermeer’s concept of the
skopos, which means that the translation is a target-text aimed at a group
of people who have specific necessities (“Skopos Theory.”) Although it
can be argued that some translated texts do not have an aim (an example,
according to Vermeer, is some literary texts), Vermeer affirms that his
theory is goal-oriented and as such translators have readers in mind and
their translations are directed to those readers. It is a fact that translators
might be mistaken, and not have control of who will read their
translations, which may be read by a larger group of people, as it is the
case of children’s books such as the Lambs’ Tales from Shakespeare,
which was read by the children’s parents and grandparents, too. But, on
the whole, a general kind of reader can be predicted and I must agree with
him (Vermeer’s example of translated technical texts is a good one). In
Tales from Shakespeare, connecting parents and grandparents to young
readers is something expected as their relationship is a close one and the
grown-ups like supervising their children’s reading. Vermeer is well aware
of the existence of freer types of translation, but does not term it
adaptation. Rather he looks at the intention behind the work, and considers
its intended readers: children’s literature based on classics is a good
example.
134 Chapter Fourteen
Georges Bastin (1998) would term this process local adaptation, which
is “‘caused by problems arising from the original text itself and limited to
certain parts of it.” Local adaptation, according to Bastin would be
temporary, localized and it is a procedure of translation. Some types of
local adaptation are, according to Bastin:
Omission: the elimination or reduction of part(s) of the text;

Expansion: making explicit information that is implicit in the original,
either in the main body or in footnotes or a glossary;
Exoticism: the substitution of stretches of slang, dialect, nonsense words,
etc., in the source-text by rough equivalents in the target language
(sometimes marked by italics or underlining);
Updating: the replacement of outdated or obscure information by modern
equivalents;
Situational equivalence: the insertion of a more familiar context than the
one used in the source-text (3).
Exemplifying such procedures of local adaptations when comparing an

excerpt the Lamb version of Romeo and Juliet, with some of the main
translations of the Lambs’ work into Brazilian Portuguese will form the
final part of this chapter. It is important to mention that Bastin also
invokes the term global adaptation, which is, according to the author,
“determined by factors outside the original text and which involves a more
wide-ranging revision.” It involves creation, “a more global replacement
of the original text with a text that preserves only the essential
message/ideas/functions of the original” (3). It happens when there is what
Bastin calls a “disruption of the communication process, which happens
with the emergence of a new epoch or approach or the need to address a
different type of readership and it often requires modifications in style,
content or presentation” (4). The English Tales from Shakespeare do fit the
situation described above, as it was written for a specific kind of reader:
the young reader.
The twenty tales were first translated into Portuguese around 1920.
They were published in Portugal and printed in Brazil. Contos de
Shakespeare was translated by the Cape Verdens writer Januário Leite and
it was published by the Renascença Portuguesa do Porto in two volumes.
In Brazil, there was another translation printed by the Typographia do
Annuario do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, in 1921. These translations were not
addressed to young audiences specifically, but to general readers. Some
years later, three other Brazilian publishing companies came up with
translations of the twenty tales in one single volume. These translations
were re-edited until the 1960s, according to research on the renowned on-
line antiquarian books site Estante Virtual. Among these translations, the
one published by Editora Globo is the only remaining translation of the

period that is printed until today; however, it has been updated. It is
addressed to any reader who wants to have an introduction to the
Shakespearean theater. The two other translations appeared in 1954 and
1959 respectively, and were aimed at a more general public: not only
teenagers but adults, too. Two other translated small volumes appeared
from the publishing company named Ática, illustrated and written in the
first decade of the twenty-first century. When analyzing these volumes,
which were based on the Lambs,’ we found some words which were closer
to Shakespeare’s.
As for the adaptations, the first Brazilian adaptation of the tales which
I found, published in 1970, and still in print today – is the small book
Contos de Shakespeare, illustrated and retold by the writer Paulo Mendes
Campos. It is important to say that the term “retold” was used by the
publishing company Ediouro until the eighth edition (which appeared in
2006) when the term “adapted” was used instead. This adaptation is
specifically aimed at teenagers.
Let us look in more detail at the ways in which Brazilian translators
have dealt with more technical issues of rendering the Lambs’ text in the
local language. I begin with an excerpt from the 1807 edition of the
source-text, recounting part of Romeo and Juliet:
And they fell to dancing, and Romeo was suddenly struck with the
exceeding beauty of a lady who danced there, who seemed to him to teach
the torches to burn bright, and her beauty to show by night like a rich
jewel worn by a blackmoor; beauty too rich for use, too dear for earth!
Like a snowy dove trooping with crows (he said), so richly did her beauty
and perfections shine above the ladies her companions (44).
This is how the translator Januário Leite translated this excerpt in 1921:
Foram dansar. Romeu foi de chofre fulminado pela extraordinária beleza

duma dama, que andava dansando, cujos olhos lhe pareciam mais
fulgurantes que as velas que iluminavam a sala; deslumbrou-o a beleza
dessa dama, que, dizia êle, era como uma nívea pomba no meio dum
bando de corvos, tam flagrantemente a destacava a sua beleza de todas as
outras damas presentes. Quando Romeu proferia estes encómios [...] (37).
This excerpt is quite probably from the first translation written in

Portuguese from Portugal, which is different from the Portuguese used in
Brazil (though at the time the tales were translated they would be easily
understandable to Brazilians as their Portuguese resembled the one used in
Portugal. At that time, Brazil did not have any publishing firms, which
meant that Brazilian books were still very dependent on Portugal and
consequently were exposed to Portuguese influence. Therefore, in case
someone wanted to publish this translation nowadays, it would be
necessary to have spelling and vocabulary updated (e.g. “dansar” [to
dance] should be written “GDQoDU” “tam” [so] should be written “tão”).
Some words would have to be changed, too: the word “flagrantemente”
[outstandingly] is not used in modern Portuguese from Brazil and is not
equivalent to the Lambs’ “richly” either. The word “encómios” [praising]
is not used in modern Brazilian Portuguese, either.
This specific bit of text is more condensed than Lamb’s, as Leite goes
straight to the point, avoids adjectives and linking words as much as he
can. He makes great use of commas. However, his most important changes
center on the imagery; he maintains the images of “dove and crows,” but
the biggest image, which is that of Juliet being compared to a rich jewel
worn by a blackmoor whose “beauty [is] too rich for use, too dear for
earth,” completely disappears. We have substituted words here
(“flagrantemente” instead of “ricamente”). Although the excerpt as a
whole resembles Lamb’s, because of important changes in sense and some
significant omissions, I would tend to call it a local adaptation. The
translator’s reason for changing many things is unknown. In the preface of
the first volume of his tales, Leite says that “these tales are common in
England, where reading has devotions not understood among us” (5). By
saying that we may infer he might have a negative view of the tales and as
such, he might be willing to cut points he considered weird without a
second thought. While we might define the target text as a translation with
some local adaptations, the editor called it “WUDGXomR” and that is what
mattered at that time, when it was more important to render the source-text
in the local language, so as to expand the potential readership.
Mario Quintana’s version, first published in 1946 and updated fifty
years later by Isis Loyolla and Flávio Martins, translates the Lambs’
passage thus:
>@(HQWUDUDPQRVDOmRGHEDLOH5RPHXVHQWLX-se sùbitamente fulminado

SHOD EHOH]D GH XPD GDPD TXH DOt GDQoDYD H TXH SDUHFLD HQVLQDU os
candelabros a brilharem e estava alí como uma rica jóia usada por um
negro; beleza demasiado fina para o uso, demasiado alta para êste
mundo! como uma pomba branca no meio de corvos, (dizia êle), de tal
modo a sua beleza e encantos fulguravam acima das jovens suas
companheiras.
Quintana’s updated translation in 1996 renders the passage thus (in the
middle of the third and the beginning of the fourth paragraph):
(QWUDQGR QR VDOmR GHEDLOH 5RPHX VHQWLX-se subitamente fulminado pela

beleza de uma dama que DOLGDQoDYDHTXHSDUHFLDHQVLQDURVFDQGHODEURV
a brilhar. Parecia uma rica joia usada por um escravo: beleza demasiado
fina e elevada para este mundo. Lembrava uma pomba branca no meio de
corvos, dizia ele, referindo-se ao modo como sua beleza e encantos
fulguravam acima das jovens companheiras.
Both texts (the first one translated by Quintana, the second one, still
Quintana’s but updated by Loyolla and Martins) are basically the same.
The first one splits the initial sentence in two whereas the second one
maintains it as one, similar to Lamb’s: it is more concise. A few words and
phrases are updated with the intention to make the text more modern. But
Quintana begins the excerpt by saying “HQWUDUDPQRVDOmRGHEDLOH” [they
entered the ballroom] instead of writing something closer to Lamb’s
sentence (“they fell to dancing”). As for the term “torches” Quintana uses
“candelabros” [chandeliers], whose choice was probably made by having
in mind a nineteenth century environment indoors. “Blackmoor” is
omitted too; in the first excerpt it is translated as “negro” [black man], but
in the second one the term “negro” is substituted by “escravo” [slave]. As
“noite” [night] does not appear in any of the two translations, thereby it
eliminates Shakespeare’s image completely. Hence it would not make
much difference to translate “blackmoor’ as “escravo,” even if the word
might seem emotive nowadays.
Octavio Mendes Cajado’s translation (1965) renders the passage thus:
&RPHoDUDP D EDLODU H 5RPHX VH VHQWLX GH UHSHQWH LPSUHVsionado pela

H[WUDRUGLQiULD EHOH]D GH XPD MRYHP TXH HVWDYD GDQoDQGR H TXH SDUHFLD
ensinar as velas a brilharem e à sua beleza a resplandecer à noite como
jóia faiscante ostentada por um negro – uma beleza demasiado grande
para ser usada, demasiado cara para a terra; pomba alvíssima voando
entre corvos, disse êle, de tal modo que se avantajavam a sua formosura e
DV VXDV SHUIHLo}HV jV GDV FRPSDQKHLUDV (QTXDQWR SURQXQFLDYD WDLV
louvores.
Péricles Eugênio da Silva Ramos’s translation (1949) offers this version:
&RPHoDUDP D GDQoDU H 5RPHX LPSUHVVLRQRX-se de súbito com a

H[WUDRUGLQiULD EHOH]D GH XPD MRYHP TXH Oi HVWDYD GDQoDQGR H TXH OKH
pareceu ensinar os archotes a brilharem; sua beleza se destacava em meio
à noite como custosa jóia ostentada por um negro: – beleza de valor
excessivo para ser usada, preciosa demais para a terra; pomba de neve
QXP EDQGR GH FRUYRV H[FODPRX rOH WmR H[SOrQGLGDPHQWH IXOJXUDYDP D
VXD IRUPRVXUD H SHUIHLo}HV DFLPD GDV GDPDV VXDV FRPSDQKHLUDV $R
externar êsses louvores.
The word “blackmoor’ is locally adapted to “negro” [black man] by the

two translators. Cajado chooses to use the word “velas” [candles] instead
of “archotes” [torches]. Both have a very sophisticated language but the
excerpts are not difficult to read and flow well. The rationale here is to try
and localize the texts for domestic audiences, rather than worrying about
keeping close to the source-text.
The two main objectives of this chapter, which are dependent on one
another, are the analysis of notions of textual transformation, and how they
are applied in practice with particular reference to Charles Lamb’s text.
There is no doubt about the primary source: Shakespeare’s play Romeo
and Juliet. So strong is the primary text’s influence that Quintana seemed
to have made use of it during the process of rendering Lamb’s text into the
local language. When we analyze all the texts we see that various textual
strategies are employed while rewriting the Lambs’ texts into Portuguese.
Shakespeare and Lamb last forever as they are both classics, attesting to
their timeless power across the centuries. However, the source texts have
been recreated throughout the years causing discussion and curiosity
amongst those who want to read them, as well as those more interested in
analyzing how and why they have been rendered in the target language.
Works Cited
Bastin, Georges. “Adaptation.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. 3-4. Print.
Brooke, Arthur. “The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet.”
CanadianShakespeares.ca. 2011. Web. 22 Jun. 2013.
Estante Virtual (2007). Web. 15 Aug. 2010.
Jonas, Maurice, and Masuccio Jonas, eds. The Thirty Third Novel Of Il
Novellino Of Masuccio – From Which Is Probably Derived The Story
Of Romeo And Juliet. Translated Out Of Italian Into English, With An
Introduction And Bibliography. New York: David & Orioli,
Antiquarian Booksellers, 1917. Print.
Lamb, Charles, and Mary Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare. 1807. Ware,
Herts, UK: Wordsworth Editions, 1994. Print.
—. Contos de Shakespeare. Trans. Januário Leite. Introduction by
Renascença Portuguesa do Porto. Rio de Janeiro: Impressão da
Typographia do Annuario do Brasil, 1921. Print.
—. Contos de Shakespeare. Trans. Octavio Mendes Cajado. 2 vols. Rio de
Janeiro: Editora Saraiva, 1954. Print.
—. Contos de Shakespeare. Trans. Paulo Mendes Campos. Rio de Janeiro:
Ediouro, 1970. Print.
—. Contos de Shakespeare. Trans. Mario Quintana. Editora Globo. São
Paulo: Porto Alegre, 1940. Print.
—. Contos de Shakespeare. Trans. Mario Quintana. Rev. Isis Loyolla and
Flávio Martins. São Paulo: Porto Alegre, 1996. Print.
—. Contos de Shakespeare. Trans. Péricles Eugênio da Silva Ramos. São
Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1959. Print.
“Luigi da Porto’s ‘Giuletta e Romeo.’ OhioStatePress.org (2007). Web. 22
Jun. 2013.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Trans. Marilise Rezende Bertin
and John Milton. São Paulo: Disal, 2006. Print.
“Shakespeare’s Sources: Romeo and Juliet.” Shakespeare-Online.com
2009. Web. 22 Jun. 2013.
“Skopos Theory.” Wikipedia 5 May 2013. Web. 22 Jun. 2013.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TRANSLATION CHALLENGES
AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS IN ADVERTISING
ADAPTATION AND MULTICULTURAL
MARKETING
HUGO VANDAL-SIROIS
In the last few decades, the field of multicultural marketing, and more
specifically of the adaptation of advertisements and promotional
campaigns, has experienced many major shifts due to various factors of
economic, social, political and social natures. Indeed, the fast growth of
international commerce, accelerated by simultaneous events such as the
creation of organizations and agreements that oversee and liberalize
international trade as well as the rise of information and
telecommunication technologies, led many multinational companies to
change their global marketing strategies. Instead of favoring the creation
of different campaigns tailor-made for each market by local agencies, they
now tend to communicate a unique message throughout the world. First
and foremost, this makes economic sense. The creation, strategic planning
and execution of any advertising communications form a long (thus
expensive) process with multiple steps and involving many professionals,
from artistic directors to copywriters, computer graphic artists and
administrative staff. Avoiding creating brand new advertising efforts from
scratch for each and every market the announcer wishes to target and
instead adapting a single message is an obvious solution to generate
substantial economies of scale. But beyond financial considerations,
spreading the same idea in various markets is a great way for multinational
companies to make sure they protect the brand image and personality they
developed over the years. They rather communicate a unique and always
coherent message, instead of letting various local marketing agencies
create custom-made communications for each culture, a solution that can
be difficult to manage and oversee from afar. This is also why commented
Translation Challenges and their Implications in Advertising Adaptation 141
“backtranslations,” (in which the translator returns a literal translation of

his or her own translation in the source language, with explanations and
justifications when relevant) are often required. However, even in this
translation over creation model, it has been demonstrated that the
translator should and must take some creative initiatives and be granted
enough power (to use Maria Tymoczko’s expression (46) to adapt different
textual and even visual elements in some cases. It is then a question of
finding the right balance between various notions whose definitions and
boundaries are sometimes vague, and vary according to the users involved:
translation vs. adaptation, localization vs. internationalization,
transcreation, transadaptation, “creative translation,” etc. These terms are
often simply used as buzzwords by marketing agencies and translation
companies offering advertising adaptation services that become tropes for
all sorts of linguistic and cultural transfer services, may imply a certain
dichotomy that need not be in some areas of specialized translation, such
as marketing and stage plays (as Annie Brisset amongst others
demonstrated in her published thesis, 1990, 1996 for English version).
After all, as audiovisual translation expert and scholar Yves Gambier
wrote, this systematic distinction between translation and adaptation is
tricky and ambiguous, as translation always implies adaptation, in one
form or another (425).
In this contribution, we will see how the cultural negotiations implied
by the translation of advertising content materialize in specific
communication contexts, and what traps to avoid when exporting a text
and a concept created in a foreign market, with foreign targets in mind.
More specifically, after reviewing what it means to act as a professional
advertising translator in a globalized economy, we will study the wide
range of elements implicitly or explicitly forming integral parts of
promotional communications that may complicate the cross-cultural
adaptation of marketing materials, mostly under the scope of the
functionalist theory from translation studies. Since we eventually aim to
deepen our knowledge about the characteristics of advertising adaptation,
its strategies, its possibilities and its limits, we will then enumerate various
translational challenges of this practice with short case studies, as well as
observed in our own professional experience in the field.
Multilingual marketing in a globalized world

In order to understand how a translator can work within a creative unit
in an advertising agency, it is important to reflect on the contextual factors
that led to his or her integration as a strategic element in the team. In the
142 Chapter Fifteen
introduction, we already mentioned the globalization phenomenon and the

constant growth of international commerce. Many years ago, analysts
feared that globalization would turn the “global village” metaphor into a
worldwide reality, where the entire planet would be homogenized (and
thus, Americanized) in regard to needs, wishes and consummation habits.
In a sociolinguistic study of the myths of the Americanization of the
planet, Mufwene demonstrates that “even ‘global cities’ maintain
individualities in the peculiar ways they adapt to changes and outside
LQÀXHQFHVZKLFKNHHSVZRUOG-wide globalization from making our planet
culturally uniform” (35). Consequently, we know today that globalization
rather results in countries being closer to each other, at least on the
economic and sociocultural standpoints, now that physical distance is less
and less an issue. Obviously, the growth of international communication is
reflected by a raise in translation needs, and it comes as no surprise that
many translation studies scholars are interested in how this situation
affects the translator’s work and his or her role as a communication agent.
It is then interesting to see how that concept can be used in this discipline.
In an article about the supremacy of British English and Beijing Mandarin
as foreign standards imposed to the translators in Singapore, James St.
André defines globalization as a concept that “refers loosely to the rapid
increase of interconnectedness between virtually all human communities;
first on the level of world markets for the circulation of goods, second on
the level of the circulation of information” (771). On this last
informational level, the translator plays a key role since he or she will
have the responsibility to make sure the adaptation will indeed seduce the
new target readers and will persuade them to adopt a new opinion or to do
a specific action (buy, try, visit, vote, etc.). The marketing agencies that
work for multinational clients are also well aware of this shift in
international commerce practices, and now consider the fact that their
work will eventually be adapted in foreign markets while creating the
original campaign:
Global marketing may, in practical terms, be very similar to old-fashioned

export selling, in that the same product is sold at home and abroad in more
or less the same way. However, the crucial difference is that the marketing
strategy is conceived from the beginning as a global one, and all the
decisions – including decisions about language – are supposed or deemed
WREHLQÀXHQFHGE\WKLVIDFWRU.HOO\-Holmes 476).
This may lead to advertising copy with better “translatability” (with

regard to puns, cultural references, over-reliance on visual and textual,
minimal need to redesign, etc.), and sometimes to a deeper and more
efficient integration of the translator in the local agency of each targeted

market, where he or she will have access to many human and material
resources that should greatly enhance the overall quality of his or her
work. This translation-friendly approach is more and more frequent in
Europe and North America, but we must admit that it is still far from being
the norm. In many cases, the translator is still seen as the last link of a long
chain, who can be contacted at the very last second. Fortunately, over the
time, competent translators manage to earn the trust of their clients (e.g.
the marketing department of multinational companies) or partners
(advertising agencies hired by these companies), who in turn become more
likely to grant the translators more effective work environments. While
socioeconomic factors continue to shape international commerce and
promotional communication between distinct markets, translators are
bound to see their role valued not only as the linguistic experts they
always have been, but also as cultural agents that know how to tweak the
substance and form of an advertisement to maximize its reception and
impact in his or her own culture.
Reader identification in the target culture

and the functionalist theory
Even if it raises fascinating questions about cultural identities and
behavior, and makes the translator deal with very specific translational
problems, advertising adaptation was not thoroughly explored in
translation studies. However, a review of the scientific literature about this
matter over that last four decades allowed us to identify a trend that is very
uncommon in our field: for translating marketing texts and contents, the
use of adaptation and “creative translation” is not only looked upon
favorably, but strongly recommended. Two reasons may come to mind to
explain this position that is more often than not criticized by scholars and
practitioners working in other fields of translation. First of all, the
advertising text does not have an author per se. It was written by a hired
copywriter, and simply does not exist for artistic or ideological reasons,
notably. This means there is no author, given statement or argument for the
translator to betray, freeing him or her from the usual dilemmas linked to
the loyalty towards the author or perpetual considerations regarding the
domestication vs. foreignization dichotomy. The second and most essential
reason for preferring adaptation is linked to the raison d’être of the
advertising text itself, namely its persuasive and seductive nature. Its sole
objective is to reach and influence the target readers, in order to interest
them, touch them, make them smile, surprise them, even provoke them in
144 Chapter Fifteen
some cases, before eventually convincing them to take action. As Karen

Smith argues in an article about the translation of advertising headlines:
It is the job of the producers and the translators of advertising to ensure

that consumers are sufficiently attracted to the product through the
advertising campaign to make a purchase. The translation strategy chosen
should reflect this overall aim. Translators, the experts in both source and
target languages and cultures, should be given the freedom to select the
most appropriate translation strategy for the translation of advertising
headlines, a choice which reflects the preferences of the target market at
that given time (Smith 175).
To be efficient (to truly lead to a specific action or change of opinion,

to be funny, to be memorable, or to “force” the reader to be open-minded
about a new brand, etc.), the copywriter must consider not only the various
characteristics of his or her target, but also the context in which the
message will be received. Every component of the advertisement, whether
it is a creation or an adaptation of a foreign advertisement, must make
sense with each other, and within the reality of the reader. In a world
where targets are exposed to thousands of promotional messages on a
daily basis, it may be very difficult to grab their attention, especially with
a message that was initially created in a different country, for different
consumers. As I wrote in a previous publication with Georges Bastin:
In fact, any indication that the advertisement has been created in a distinct
culture might jeopardize the viewer’s ability and “willingness” to feel
concerned by the message and to comprehend its content. To successfully
reach their target audience and efficiently get the key message across, the
translator must go through a reflection phase that is in many ways similar
to the creative process followed by the copywriters of the original version
(Vandal and Bastin 32).
Reader identification is a key factor in marketing, and represents a

concept that translators must consider at all time. This is why the
functionalist or skopos theory in translation studies (proposed by Vermeer
221-32), is very relevant in the field of multicultural marketing, in which
translators must go beyond the textual and visual content of the
advertisement and consider above all the function of the text, which
absolutely needs to be preserved in the adaptation. Advertising translators
must produce (and be expected to produce) function-oriented texts that
may differ significantly from the original advertisement when it comes to
approach, selling points, logical progression of the arguments, intended
effects, etc. After all, when a company hires a translator, it does not want
to expose a foreign culture to the content of the original campaign or wish

to show the world a creation solely for its artistic merits. It just wants to
sell products. This is why the success of the translation can be (and will
be) measured in terms of sales and impact in the target culture instead of
faithfulness, equivalence and other concept often used in other areas of
translation. The following section examines real cases of communication
challenges of different kinds that may force the advertising translator to
depart from the original text and consider more creative solutions.
Translational challenges in multicultural

marketing efforts
As we said, many aspects linked to the creation of multicultural
marketing campaigns are still left to investigate in translation studies and
adaptation studies. To this day, the scientific publications on the matter
give a great idea of the theoretical implications of this practice and how
wide is the spectrum of factors to be considered by the translator. It has
been established that a common denominator found in most if not all
publications is the authors’ strong incitement to favor the target culture
through domesticating translation strategies. However, besides this clear
point, these works form a rather heterogeneous ensemble, mostly
composed of individual comparative case studies that addresses very
specific issues such as a section of the advertisement in particular
(headlines, slogans, etc.), media constraints (online banners, television
spots, etc.), textual and visual issues (puns, semantic links between text
and image, etc.) and multilingual marketing cases for a particular field of
products (cosmetics, video games, food, etc.). To pursue our objectives,
we believe a logical first step would be to survey the scientific literature
on advertising adaptation, especially the case studies, and identify the
various translational difficulties they individually examine. In this section
of the chapter, we present the conclusions of this exercise, and exemplify
each kind of challenge by real case studies by the authors, or encountered
in our own professional practice.
First of all, the translation of advertising form-based or meaning-based
textual effects is often tricky for numerous reasons. The translator must
keep his or her version as short and efficient as the original, while
respecting the guidelines of promotional copywriting (simple, easy to read,
straight to the point, catchy, memorable, etc.). He or she will also have to
keep in mind various factors such as the client’s communication objective,
the identity of the intended reader or the brand personality (that helps
notably to choose a specific vocabulary level). This is why a simple call to
146 Chapter Fifteen
action like “Call us now” can be translated in many different ways,

according to the announcer’s identity, and the sociocultural characteristics
of the person who will receive the message. The copywriters tend to use
many textual effects and figures, including syllepsis, alliteration,
assonance, rhyme and of course puns of various natures to produce short
meaningful sentences that are easy to understand quickly, and fun or
surprising enough to create a lasting impression. In an article about the
translation of wordplays in advertising, Geneviève Quillard gives the
example of the slogan for a lawnmower: “Built to last. Priced to go!” that
was translated in French as “Construit pour résister! Prix irrésistible!”
(134). The translator conveyed both major ideas (good quality at a good
price), with a remarkable stylistic effect. Quillard notes that if the original
version is based on a single antithesis, the French adaptation uses a
derivation (résister/ irrésistible) that works both on the meaning and the
form of the slogan. Another good example would be the adaptation of the
corporate tagline of a candy company. The original English line focused
on the pleasure of eating candy: “Chews to smile” (obviously referring to
the verb “choose” as well). Since fun is such an important concept in this
communication, the translator had to keep this idea in one way or another,
even though the line is untranslatable as it is. After quite a few
brainstorming and research sessions, the translator came up with “C’est
bonbon de sourire” (literally: “It’s good, good to smile.”) This adaptation
manages to keep both key information and a playful composition with the
repetition of the word “bon” (“good”) that creates the word “bonbon”
(“candy”). Here, the association between the product (candy) and its
promise (tastes good, fun to eat) is even stronger in the French adaptation
than in the original English tagline.
A second translational challenge that grabbed the attention of many
authors interested in advertising adaptation is linked to the visual elements
and layout. Images are the best way to communicate quickly and to induce
emotions in a snap. Most advertisements heavily rely on visual content,
with the text often playing second fiddle. However, nothing is left to
chance, and each word is usually carefully selected to maximize the effect
created by its juxtaposition with the visual content (support the
information conveyed by the image, surprise the reader with an
opposition, explain an intriguing picture, etc.). The translator must
consider this interdependence between image and text and this is why he
or she must imperatively have access to the whole original advertisement
(it may be obvious to scholars and practitioners alike, but it is still not a
reflex with every client). The text itself can also features visual effects,
such as characters that form specific images, which requires the translator
to team up with a computer graphic artist. Anyhow, the tricky part of

adapting advertisements that work with a visual concept is that in most
cases, as opposed to the textual content, the translator does not often have
the power, time, skill or resources to modify it in any way, especially when
it comes to one-time marketing efforts or campaigns of a smaller scale. A
good example would be an ad for a famous digital music player, where the
fact that the device can store many songs thanks to its big memory is
represented by an elephant. This visual cue is of course a mnemonic link
to the old saying “an elephant never forgets.” If the translator belongs to a
culture where this association is not so common or even nonexistent, he or
she will have to find a way to produce a text that justifies the presence of
the pachyderm while of course keeping in mind that the product and its
features must stay predominant. A good solution, maybe, would be to twist
the text in order to make an association between the massive body of the
elephant and the large capacity of the device. As a cultural agent, the
translator must also scrutinize the visual content of the ad to see if
anything might complicate or harm the communication process in the
target culture and notices the client, just as he or she does with the textual
content, in order to achieve the best efficiency and coherence. Many
examples of these adaptations are found in French Canadian adaptations of
English Canadians ads in which, due to political reasons, translators tend
to erase or soften any references to Canada (by using more vague words
like “home” or “here.”) This textual adaptation is often reflected by
corresponding changes in the visual content, where maple leaves and other
Canadian symbols might disappear or be replaced by a Québec fleur-de-
lys or, in the case of a famous Canadian restaurant chain, snowflakes.
Thirdly, many situations that rise as an obstacle in a multinational
marketing communication strategy are linked to the cultural differences
between the consumers’ source and target markets. This very large
category includes all cases of hard-to-translate humor, references to any
reality that does not exist in the target culture, arguments that will be less
convincing or downright ridiculous and discrepancies between both
communication contexts. It may also cover any tricky situations linked to
habits, customs, tradition, religion and local laws. Just like the copywriter
who penned the original text, the translator will have to think about the
readers he is writing for, how and where will they be exposed to the
message, how are they linked to the advertised brand, cause or product,
etc. This key information might differ greatly from one culture to another,
however close they may seem on a geographical, sociological, political or
economic standpoint. I already mentioned that reader identification is a
crucial factor for the effectiveness of a marketing message. This is why
148 Chapter Fifteen
copywriters often use cultural references to help the reader understand a

point, while demonstrating that the announcer really knows the target
readers’ reality. For instance, if the original copy says a cruise ship is X
football fields long, it might be wise to convert this information in Y
American football fields. The same thing goes with geographical
comparisons, where the translator should take the time to find a location
that the target readers are more likely to know and have seen in person. In
one of the rare books about translating promotional messages, Mathieu
Guidère gives a great example of important translational shift caused by
preoccupations of a cultural nature. The slogan of a French body slimming
cream was: “C’est décidé, je montre mes fesses” (literally: “I have decided,
I show my buttocks.”) The Arabic version of the slogan removed all kinds
of sexual or seductive innuendos, to avoid upsetting the new targeted
demographic and literally became: “I decided to end adipose tissues”
(Guidère 256). Even though the product and its promise are the same, I see
a major difference in the practical applications of the alleged benefits.
Indeed, while the French version played the “I want to feel sexy, young
and confident” card, the Arabic adaptation simply pushed forward the
product physiological advantage. Another illustration of how international
marketing campaigns can have unforeseen consequences is found in a
promotional publication for a company specializing in creative translation
(Humphrey et. al.) In the recent years, Volkswagen used the line “Das
Auto” worldwide, emphasizing the product’s German origin. This strategy
backfired in Brazil, where the cars are actually manufactured. Previous
Brazilian campaigns acknowledge this fact, and the new global tagline
instantly broke this important emotional bound. Of course, the copywriters
from major agencies in Europe and United States cannot predict how the
translated versions of their creations will be received in different nations.
These situations show the importance of involving a translator that
belongs to the targeted culture, masters advertising techniques and who
can raise flags when such issues might occur. Obviously, the translator
must go beyond the textual content of the message to analyze the
communication as a whole.
Finally, space and time constraints often complicate the job of
advertising translators. These technical limitations are intrinsically linked
to the media used by the announcer and may cause issues when the source
and target languages show important differences (for instance, French
texts are believed to be usually about 20% longer than their English
equivalent). Whether the message to translate is a short title at the top of a
print ad, shown on a billboard on the side of the road where drivers only
have five seconds to read it and understand its content, or on a briefly
displayed online banner, the translator will have to avoid as much as

possible easy solutions that weaken the final message, like cutting
information or suggesting to use a smaller font size in the adapted copy.
This is also true for audiovisual advertising productions that will need to
be dubbed, subtitled or even reworked for the new targets, according once
again to the chosen media (for instance, subtitles are not suitable for a low
resolution video that appears on a website). Concrete examples would be
the multilingual corporate Twitter accounts where the posts are limited to
140 characters or radio spots that must fit in predetermined formats of
usually 15 and 30 seconds. It is worth mentioning that because of these
constraints, in addition to knowing copywriting techniques and mastering
the art of audiovisual translation, advertising translators must be aware of
the technical particularities of writing for the Web, screenwriting and of
texts that are meant to be read aloud and performed by actors. Once again,
the isolated translator who cannot work closely with other communication
experts is disadvantaged, since he or she will only have rare opportunities
to develop these skills that are not often thoroughly studied in university
programs.
Final thoughts
As we try to deepen our understanding of a practice that, due to
globalization and the fast-paced development of information technologies,
will continue to be on the rise for the years to come, identifying and
sorting out translation challenges seemed to be a necessary exercise. After
an extensive review of scientific literature about this matter, including
peer-reviewed articles spanning over forty years from the fields of
marketing studies and translation studies, I found out that authors
individually studied cases linked in one way or another to textual effects,
visual elements and layout, cultural differences and finally space and time
constraints. I wish that this preliminary classification will allow us to
determine if tendencies are observable for each media, specific target
demographic, marketing strategy or kind of announcer.
On a more general note, let’s hope that the current socioeconomic
context in which advertising strategists, copywriters and translators work
will inspire researchers to explore this aspect of cross-cultural
communication. The fact that we are more and more surrounded by
screens in our everyday lives, for instance, certainly has an impact on the
practice and theory of audiovisual translation. As cultural agents,
translators will face paratextual challenges that are as important in the
communication process as the words themselves and they have to accept
150 Chapter Fifteen
to play this part in order to translate advertising texts that are efficient not
only linguistically, but on the psychological and business levels as well.
Works Cited
Brisset, Annie. Sociocritique de la Traduction. Théâtre et altérité au
Québec. Montréal : Balzac/Le Préambule, 1990. Print.
—. A Sociocritique of Translation. Theatre and Alterity in Quebec. Trans.
Rosalind Gill and Roger Ganno. Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1996.
Print.
Gambier, Yves. “Adaptation: une Ambiguïté à Interroger.” META:
Translators' Journal 37.3 (1992): 421-425. Print.
Guidère, Mathieu. Publicité et Traduction. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000. Print.
Humphrey, Louise, Amy Somers, James Bradley and Guy Gilpin. The
Little Book of Transcreation. London: Mother Tongue Writers, 2011.
Print.
Kelly-Holmes, Helen. “Languages and Global Marketing.” The Handbook
of Language and Globalization. Ed. Nikolas Coupland. Malden, VA,
and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 475-92. Print.
Mufwene, Salikoko S. “Globalization, Global English, and World
English(es): Myths and Facts.” The Handbook of Language and
Globalization. Ed. Nikolas Coupland. Malden, VA, and Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2010. 31-55. Print.
Quillard, Geneviève. “La Traduction des Jeux de Mots dans les Annonces
Publicitaires”. TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction 14.1 (2001):
117-157. Print.
Smith, Karen. “Rhetorical Figures and the Translation of Advertising
Headlines.” Language and Literature 15.2 (2006): 159-182. Print.
St. André, James. “He ‘catch no ball’ leh! Globalization Versus
Localization in the Singaporean Translation Market.” META:
Translators' Journal 51.4 (2006): 771-786. Print.
Tymoczko, Maria. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators.
Manchester and Kindershook, NY: St. Jerome Publishing, 2007. Print.
Vandal-Sirois, Hugo. “Publicités Multilingues : l’Apport du Traducteur en
Agence de Communication Marketing.” ILCEA (Revue de l'Institut des
langues et cultures d'Europe et d'Amérique) 14 (2011). Web. 22 May
2013.
Vandal-Sirois, Hugo and Georges L. Bastin. “Adaptation and
Appropriation: Is There a Limit?” Translation, Adaptation and
Transformation. Ed. Laurence Raw. New York and London:
Continuum, 2012. 21-41. Print.
Vermeer, Hans. “Skopos and Comission in Translational Action.” Trans.
Andrew Chesterman. Translation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence
Venuti. New York and London: Routledge, 2000. 221-32. Print.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ADVERTISING:
THE INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE’S
POSSIBILITIES
TÂNIA HOFF
AND JOÃO ANZANELLO CARRASCOZA
Advertising narrative carries at its heart implicit and explicit values

from the historic context in which it was enunciated. The text of an ad, or
a TV commercial, for example, is structured by statements (verbal and
visual) basically related to the attributes of the product or service
promoted, but which reveal social representations and certain investments
in the collective imaginary.
At the margin of these statements there is a universe of those
statements that were left unsaid. They are silenced 1) by the natural
impossibility that they be stated given that, in their place, something else
already was; and 2) by the discursive strategy adopted by enunciators,
which emphasizes certain statements to the detriment of others that they
do not want to present for various reasons – the most important certainly
being because they are not as good at promoting the product advertised,
according to its conception, as the statements chosen.
This is the ideological knot that advertising never unties, the key to its
rhetoric, and for this reason, the reason for the most vehement criticisms
addressed to it. If, as Péninou (25) affirms, advertising narrative is
associated with the creation of a world favorable to the product, capable of
generating empathy among the target-public, so that it can sustain it, it will
always force the enunciator – the company advertising, although the
message is prepared, to order, by an advertising agency – to choose its
statements as a function of the communication objectives and in keeping
with the established marketing plan.
The interest in studying what is said and not said in the advertising
narrative, these two vectors of discourse analysis that can be studied in
Advertising: The Intercultural Dialogue’s Possibilities 153
countless discursive situations, and our trajectory as a researcher in the

field of advertising communication, led us to study advertising films of
consecrated brands, which broadcast global campaigns, circulating in the
global discursive storyline narratives that express meanings that are not
always similar for individuals of distinct cultures.
Treating advertising as discursive memory (interdiscourse), which
combines various discourses, we can perceive in the global advertising
narratives their “statements” and their “unsaid statements” and how both
compete for the construction of meanings. Supported by Pollack’s
definitions of “official memory” and “underground memory” (12), we
analyze advertising films made for large corporations with a global scope
(Nike, Coca-Cola, Chanel and Cartier), which circulate on YouTube (and
are thus accessed by individuals in various cultures), investigating what
they say, and what they don’t say, so as to fulfill their first objective: to
persuade the public of the qualities of their products. To do so, we will
present our theoretical suppositions and then study the production
conditions, the intertextual, verbal and visual elements of these narratives,
which were created for an intended multicultural audience.
These commercials are designed to be consumed through the media by
individuals from various countries on television and or at the cinema, but
are also made available on the Internet in sites such as YouTube. They are
also created with a great potential for “going viral.” They are intercultural
texts designed for a public who do not always share the same values.
Advertising films, like all discursive constructions, produce real effects
and feed the formation of subjectivities. They contribute, together with
other advertising materials, to establishing brand identity – the semiotic
motor of corporate communication (Semprini 45) – and, because of their
easy access and accessibility on the web, are strategically important to the
companies’ communication.
To study and analyze the filmic advertising narrative, we begin with
the premise that advertising is a socio-historic production that is the fruit
of economic, political and cultural events. More than just a commercial
message, publicity is an enunciation of society, which results from
discursive polyphony and heterogeneity (Bakhtin 295). Narrative
irrespective of form is a mode of shaping existence in the course of our
daily acts (Ricoeur 93). Advertising narrative is, therefore, a form by
which companies present themselves to the world, produce effects of
meanings and delineate the borders of their fabled territory, utilizing other
texts in circulation, and also releasing others in the media system through
their narrative acts. In this way, they forge worlds in the realm of the
imaginary. It is also worth emphasizing that the narrative web is
154 Chapter Sixteen
constructed by enunciations (which may or may not be fictional texts) and

that their construct is always based on the experience of subjects in the
social interaction in a given socio-historic moment. The material of the
narratives is that of experience, given that what is “said” and “unsaid” are
choices guided by the discursive strategy, which follows the market logic
of the enunciating companies. Hence we must consider both implicit and
explicit meanings.
The structure of the collective memory hypothesized by Pollack helps
us to understand advertising narrative as a product of its context. There is
an “official memory” that selects and gives order to the facts according to
certain criteria such as zones of shadow, silences, forgotten dreams and
repressions (11), but there are also “underground memories,” linked to
familiar frameworks, ethnic and political groups that transmit and
conserve prohibited, repressed or ignored memories (8). Advertising
narrative can select material from both “official memory” as well as
“underground memories” (11). It operates with facts and events from both
the public and private sphere. By giving priority to certain cultural clichés,
or long homogenized icons, the advertising silences or erases in its
narrative local cultural diversity and operates according to the criteria of
“official memory.” In the same way, by presenting scenes of protests in
Egypt or Tunisia, for example, advertising draws on “underground
memories.”
Although advertising narrative encompasses aspects of both “official
memory” and “underground memory,” it is important to remember that it
has its framings, its forms of narrating, given its characteristics of socio-
historic production, which respond to certain economic and socio-cultural
contexts. This process of selection that is clearly evident in advertising
creation follows the planning guidelines for creation, when it engages with
the values of a time, or when it presents the positive aspects of a product,
service or brand. It also conducts framing when it selects arguments to
promote a product or brand, or simply when it registers daily practices of a
given epoch.
In an advertising film, therefore, the narrative frames socio-cultural
facts with which it seeks to substantiate, through illustration, some
distinction of a product. In the discursive plot it says (and shows) –
because here “to say” means to use words and images to communicate –
that which organizes the narrative, that which, strictly speaking, is the
narrative itself. And as we have affirmed, the “statements” of any
discourse are bordered by the “unsaid.” That which is not spoken is an
implicit form of the statement (Ducrot 87). They can be from two
categories: the presupposed unsaid, which takes place in the realm of
language itself (in the illocutionary act); and the implied “non-said,”
which is manifest as a function of the context. We seek in our analysis to
indicate that which was “said” in the selected commercials and illuminate
two modes of “not-saying”:
(i) the presupposed – because they point to that which was not said but
which is present in the silence of what is said and;
(ii) the implicit, which, given the globalized socio-cultural context, allows
us to capture what, although expressive, the enunciator left silent.
In this methodological route, we draw on the work of Eni Orlandi (50),

for whom the unsaid can be studied in the realm of interdiscourse,
ideology and discursive formations. For Orlandi everything that is said
(and therefore “presentified” in the enunciation) is supported in the
discursive memory (absence): “It’s not everything that was not said” that
is important in an analysis, but “just the unsaid relevant” to the significant
situation (83).
We chose, as a corpus for analysis, four commercials from brands that
advertise that have products consumed globally, and which broadcast their
advertising films to a global audience. They are “absolute” brands
(Chetochice 99), consecrated by the quality of their goods and are
immediately recognized by the consumer public, unlike “relative” brands,
which, although they may be known for the excellence of their products,
are not market leaders. Intermediary brands are respected, but have still
not reached the “top of mind” of their market segment. The absolute
brands at times also acquire the status of synonyms for the goods that they
produce, and are positioned in opposition to so-called “transparent”
brands, which are only identified by consumers from a given geographic
region who belong to a single community or culture. When their
advertising communication is circulated in broader media spaces, they are
not seen immediately and with the same clarity as absolute brands. It is as
if they were transparent to consumers in other parts of the world.
Thus, we have selected the commercials Write the Future by Nike,
Coca-Cola Zero Meets James Bond, Audrey Tatou by Chanel no. 5, and
L'Odyssée by Cartier. All of these films were initially broadcast for local
media consumption, and subsequently distributed over the Internet (via
YouTube and or other sites) so that a global audience could access them.
We begin with the commercial Write the Future by Nike. The film
shows various soccer players (Ronaldinho Gaúcho, Cristiano Ronaldo
etc.) in decisive moments in final games of an unspecified championship.
Such moments normally have two outcomes: 1) if the action of the player
changed the outcome of the game in favor of his team, it makes him a hero
156 Chapter Sixteen
(depicted in situations of global recognition in later scenes); or 2) if he

failed in the play, this hyperbolically caused the end of his career and led
him, in the following sequences to experience an alternative life. Some
statements, specifically related to the success of the Brazilian player
Ronaldinho Gaúcho, are significant in our opinion: he became associated
with a dribble known as a pedalada, in which the movement of his feet
and the sway of his hips were reminiscent of samba steps. In the
commercial, we see this “dance” imitated by people throughout the world,
who even later register their steps in films broadcast on YouTube. This
movement is even copied by athletes in other sports such as basketball.
The commercial clearly states that a dance like this has become a new
cultural trend, and that those who perform it are supported by Nike. They
“write,” with their talent, a glorious future, while losers are forgotten. In
the fabled universe of Nike, an athlete’s heroic performance invariably
results in the destruction of the other, not only in defeat, which is common
and happens in any sport.
Now we move to the analysis of the commercial Coca-Cola Zero
Meets James Bond. The film is modeled on the iconic opening of James
Bond films, in which the eponymous hero experiences innumerable high
speed automobile chases, hand-to-hand struggles and encounters with
beautiful women. At the beginning of the advertisement the ground begins
to crack, recalling an earthquake; at the same time that he has to “save” a
bottle of Coca-Cola Zero that has been tossed to him by a woman. Coca-
Cola Zero is the object of dispute between the hero and his opponent: at
the end James Bond will save it and earn as a prize the beautiful and fatal
woman who instigated the conflict. All the scenes in the commercial are
shot through a red filter – deictic of the Coca Cola brand. The undeniably
most expressive aspect of this commercial is the absence of death: a gun
appears at the end of the commercial, only as an icon to identify James
Bond’s activity. In the sweetened world of Coca-Cola, there is no space for
real danger, much less of the deadly consequences of a true conflict. We
are in a universe of fiction that is favorable to the product. Thus, because
of this implicit unsaid statement, which is powerfully significant, the
advertising film for Coca-Cola Zero maintains the Manichean perspective
of the 007 stories, but neutralizes their leading narrative force – which is
death.
The third commercial that we analyze is that of the perfume Chanel no.
5, which tells a story of the first experience of a man smelling the aroma
of Chanel no. 5 on a beautiful woman, played by the actress Audrey
Tautou. The encounter takes place on the legendary Orient Express train:
while the man feels attracted to the female protagonist, she is attracted to
him because he has “identified” her perfume. The ad shows her anxiously
waiting for him, and his indecision about seeking her out, although the
scenes insinuate that both want an encounter, which is not realized during
the trip. In adjoining cabins, the two “dream” of each other throughout the
night, unable to sleep. Just like the two previous commercials, there are no
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and woman encounter each other once more. An important unsaid
statement in this ad is that Tautou had played the role of Coco Chanel in
Coco Avant Chanel (2009); another important unsaid statement is the fact
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East and West. Nevertheless both the man and women originate from the
West; in the world according to Chanel, there is no space for a mixture of
cultures. Cultural differences are only evident in the scenery, and are in
reality secondary to the plot. Chanel no. 5 acts as the hand of fate, like the
god Eros; the woman who uses it will discover the love of her life. This
narrative reaffirms a belief in love at first sight, so long as it is between
people of the same social socio-economic background.
The final commercial analyzed, L'Odyssée by Cartier begins by
showing a leopard in the display window of the Cartier jewelry store at the
Rue de la Paix. Like magic, the animal comes alive and leaves the store
where it was confined, to undertake a world tour. He passes through
various countries, represented by some of their cultural icons such as the
Kremlin (Russia), the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal (India), as
well as giant-size images of Cartier rings and bracelets. The high point of
the commercial is the leopard’s arrival to an idyllic place full of splendid
trees and animals made of diamonds and colorful precious stones). The
leopard returns to Paris on the wing of the world’s first airplane – the “14
Bis” that rose to the sky in 1910 in the French capital, driven by inventor
Santos Dumont – and, instead of going to the display case where he had
been, goes to a palace where he finds a beautiful woman waiting for him.
The commercial’s final image shows the woman, covered in jewels,
caressing the cat’s fur, with a few diamonds in the palm of her hand,
revealing the animal’s previous incarnation as a (living) jewel. We can
understand from the narrative that the commercial illustrates the history of
the Maison Cartier since its rise in 1847, as can be seen through the
captions at the end. The leopard represents the panther, a figure embraced
by Cartier since its beginning; the passage of the animal to Russia takes us
to the Czars who bought jewels from Cartier; the jewels that accompanied
the leopard in its trip are the Trinity Ring and the Love Bracelet, two of
the jeweler’s most celebrated classics; the Celestial Dragon and the Wall
of China exemplify the Asian influence in Cartier’s work, since the
158 Chapter Sixteen
company has created jewelry in the form of the legendary animals of this
region; and the Taj Mahal reminds us of the jewelry orders sent to Cartier
by the Indian maharajahs. Another message communicated by this ad is
through the final scene, in which the woman and the leopard enter a
Cartier jewelry box, which closes, thereby concluding the narrative. For
this advertising brand, the story is as precious as its jewelry.
In the group of advertising films analyzed, we find, by the isotopic
nature of what is said, a sample of homogeneous cultural values inserted in
narratives that are “oriented” to, explicitly or implicitly, promote attributes
of the product or the maintenance of its manufacturer as an absolute brand
in the memory of the universal audience. Investments are made in inter-
discourse of easy recognition, in cliché, even if imagistically revealed in
beautiful scenes. On the other hand, in the reinforcement of what is
“unsaid” there is an entire “narrative” that elides cultural differences and
does not trigger, at any time, the “underground memory” that reveals local,
daily and atavistic conflicts. When Romanian writer Herta Muller, who for
three decades was persecuted by her country’s secret service during the
Ceausceuscu dictatorship, received the Nobel Prize for literature, she said
that literature could not change reality “but can – and even if a posteriori –
invent, by means of language, a truth that shows what happens around us
when values are derailed” (Muller 23). Transporting this affirmation to the
field of discourses, above all the mediatic ones that have broad reach – as
in our case, advertising films – we can say that these commercials, once
analyzed, reveal the investments made by their enunciators in certain
discursive strategies. These strategies demonstrate, in the narratives
presented of possible worlds (and those favorable to their products), the
tracks on which the values of contemporary capitalism travel.
Works Cited
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Trans. Michel
Lahud and Yara F. Vieira. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1997. Print.
Chanel: Train de Nuit. Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Perf. Audrey Tautou.
Tapioca Films, 2009. Advertisement.
Chetochine, Georges. A derrota das marcas: Como evitá-las? Trans. Maria
Whitaker Ribeiro Knolf. São Paulo: Makron Books, 1999. Print.
Coco Avant Chanel. Dir. Anne Fontaine. Perf. Audrey Tautou, Benoït
Poelvoorde. Haut et Court/ Ciné@/ Warner Bros, 2009. Film.
Coca-Cola Zero Meets James Bond. Dir. Orion Tait. Buck NY, 2008.
Advertisement.
Ducrot, Oswald. O dizer e o dito. Trans. Eduardo Guimarães. São Paulo:
Pontes, 1987. Print.
L'Odyssée de Cartier. Dir. Bruno Aveillan. QUAD, 2012. Advertisement.
Muller, Herta. Sempre a Mesma Neve e Sempre o Mesmo Tio. Trans.
Claudia Abeling. São Paulo: Editora Globo, 2012. Print.
Nike: Write the Future. Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Independent
Films, 2010. Advertisement.
Orlandi, Eni. Análise de discurso – Princípios e procedimentos. 2nd ed.
Campinas: Pontes, 2000. Print.
Péninou, George. “La Comunicación Publicitária.” Selección de lecturas
sobre fundamentos de publicidade. Eds. Yanet Toirac and Rosa Munõz.
Havana: Editorial Félix Varela, 2005. 112-32. Print.
Pollack, Michel. “Memória, Esquecimento, Silêncio.” Trans. Dora Rocha
Flaksman. Estudos Históricos 2.3 (1989): 3-15. Print.
Ricoeur, Paul. Tempo e Narrativa. Trans. Roberto Leal Ferreira.
Campinas: Papirus, 1997. Print.
Semprini, Andrea. A Marca Pós-moderna – Poder e Fragilidade da Marca
na Sociedade Contemporânea. Trans. Elisabeth Leone. São Paulo:
Estação das Letras e Cores, 2006. Print.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BRINGING THE MID-WEST
TO THE MIDDLE EAST:
AN ANALYSIS OF A HARLEQUIN ROMANCE
IN ENGLISH AND TURKISH
HEATHER SCHELL
The study of adaptation and translation has traditionally been seen as

two separate pursuits, one housed in English departments and the other in
Comparative Literature departments. However, recent developments are
revealing the connections that underlie both specialties. Indeed, translation
studies has taken a “cultural turn” (Bassnett and Lefevere 3-4), in which
the focus on fidelity and the source-text has shifted instead to deeper
interest in the rewritten text and its target culture. Translation studies has
simultaneously broadened its definition of translation itself, suggesting
that it is a subcategory of adaptation. André Lefevere invites us to see
translation not as reflection (an idea based on faithful mirroring of the
original) but refraction. In Lefevere’s terms, refraction is “the adaptation
of a work of literature to a different audience, with the intention of
influencing the way in which that audience reads the work” (Lefevere
235). We can thus see translation as a particular type of adaptation, though
perhaps a type that the non-professional reader will presume mirrors the
source-text. In this regard, a translation could be considered a type of
invisible adaptation. In fact, global economic enterprises may actually
prefer to downplay the “new readings” wrought by translation, expressing
a “simultaneous necessity of translation and the desire to render it
invisible”; Bleich adopts Naomi Seidman’s term to describe this market
ideal as “the invisible theory of translation” (Bleich 497). It falls to us to
question the supposed transparency of translation and appreciate instead
the ways in which a translation adapts the source-text.
In this article, I will be considering the translation of Shirley Jump’s
romance novel Back to Mr. and Mrs. from English into Turkish. Back to
Mr. and Mrs. is a brand-name short contemporary romance, one of
Bringing the Mid-West to the Middle East 161
hundreds of books published every month and only available for thirty
days before the next month’s selections appear. These books are the
product of a global enterprise, Harlequin International, and as such have
traditionally been seen as iterations of an interchangeable type of book,
possibly purchased based on its category rather than its author. Because
such books are printed and distributed on a massive scale, it may be
tempting to assume that the novels and the translations are somehow
generated by automatons. That is not in fact the case: both the authors and
the translators have substantial independence in creating and shaping these
stories. An experienced translator of a Harlequin (HQN) romance into
Turkish occupies a unique space within this highly regulated business,
where, in exchange for accepting severe financial and temporal
constraints, she enjoys near-complete autonomy in her interpretation of the
source-text.1 I will first provide some background on HQN, then discuss
Back to Mr. and Mrs., before considering the nature of the adaptations
found in the translated text.
Brand-name short contemporary romance is the most common type of
popular romance. Popular romance earns the “popular” in its name.
Romance Writers of America, which regularly compiles statistics on the
genre, reports that popular romance earned $1.368 billion of the US
market share for fiction in 2011; compare this to the $709 million for
mysteries, the second most popular type of fiction. Traditional literary
fiction earned only about one third of the revenue of popular romance, $467
million (“About.”) Harlequin is the biggest publisher of popular romance
and other romance-centered fiction for women; it also owns Silhouette and
Mills and Boon. Harlequin publishes over 800 titles every month in 29
languages, and over 50% of its books are sold outside of North America
(“Harlequin Enterprises.”) HQN’s publishing history in the Republic of
Turkey extends back to the 1960s. From 1991 until his death in 2011, the
entire enterprise in the Republic was overseen and strongly shaped by one
man, Arda Gedik. H41¶VøVWDQEXORIILFHZDVRIILFLDOO\opened in February
of 2010, becoming the newest of HQN’s 18 main global offices (Fisher).
Whether one interprets popular fiction as reflecting or creating popular
appeal, the very scale of Harlequin’s influence makes it worth study. In the
Republic of Turkey, seven new books are published every month, all of
them translations of English-language works and most containing
FRQGHQVHGYHUVLRQVRIWZRQRYHOV7LWOHVDUHVHOHFWHGLQWKH+417UNL\H
office based on their popularity with American readers (Yerlikaya).
1
While Ladies Auxiliaries are charitable organizations with a long and storied
history, Jump’s reference is to the common stereotype of church-affiliated groups
that organize gentle social events for the elderly, usually in rural communities.
162 Chapter Seventeen
As to readership, there are no precise figures available for the Republic

of Turkey, but in the United States, 90% of popular romance readers are
women. Gedik estimated that 99% of Turkish HQN readers were women
between the ages of eighteen and fifty, mostly unmarried and with high
school educations (Gedik). My 2012 survey of over 300 “fans” of HQN
7UNL\H¶V )DFHERRN VLWH \LHOGHG QRWDEO\ GLIIHUHQW UHVXOWV IRU UHDGHU
education: almost 95% had completed high school, and roughly half
(52.8%) reported having completed a college degree. By either Gedik’s
estimate or my own, these HQN readers are highly educated — only 21%
of adult Turkish women have completed high school (Hacettepe
University 44). Accurate demographic information on HQN readers may
be less important than the perceived demographic, when it comes to
WUDQVODWRUV¶VHQVHRIWKHLULQWHQGHGDXGLHQFHLWLVOLNHO\WKDW+417UNL\H
shapes translators’ understanding of their readership.
The conditions of translation play a strong role in shaping the final
texts. The translators, predominantly women, work freelance for 600TL
per novel, with under a month to complete the translation (Yerlikaya).
+DUOHTXLQ 7UNL\H SURYLGHV LWV WUDQVODWRUV ZLWK EURDG JXLGHOLQHV
translators “never touch the character of hero and heroine,” though they
may “play with descriptions” (Gedik). Some of this “play” is required by
the nature of the category romance, especially its set page length. To make
the story fit its Turkish format, the translator has to delete about thirty
percent of the original book as she translates. With such a tight schedule,
PRVWRI+417UNL\H¶VWUDQVODWRUVGRQRWUHDGWKH(QJOLVKODQJXDJHERRN
EHIRUH WKH\ FRPPHQFH WR WUDQVODWH LW WKRXJK WKH HGLWRU DW WKH øVWDQEXO
office carefully reviews each translation, she does not refer to the source-
text. These factors create conditions that both encourage adaptation and
render it invisible.
Turning to the novel I am studying, Back to Mr. and Mrs. was
originally published in English in 2007. The Turkish language version, Bir
ùDQV'DKD (One More Chance) appeared in 2010 as a 112-page novella,
combined in one book with Melissa McClone’s 2007 Marriage for Baby
(translated into Turkish as .oN0HOHN, meaning “little angel”). In Jump’s
story, the heroine, Melanie, has left Cade, her husband of 20 years, and
opened a small coffee shop. They live near Indianapolis, in the American
heartland. We meet the couple long after the traditional romance novel
ends: after a marriage and a child, with the protagonists discovering that
the romantic expectations of their youth were not sustainable. The story
aims for realism and actively disavows the fairy tale love stories that
Linda Lee has shown us still underlie many romances.
Shirley Jump has written other unconventional love stories, including

ones that feature accidental pregnancy (Vegas Pregnancy Surprise) and
single mothers (Doorstep Daddy). Rating books for their implicit
feminism is obviously a subjective endeavor, but Back to Mr. and Mrs. is a
socially progressive romance in many ways. The heroine, Melanie, had
married hastily and relinquished her career dreams two decades earlier,
after finding herself pregnant in high school, and then dedicated her life
afterwards to Cade and her daughter. This trajectory (in spite of the out-of-
wedlock pregnancy) matches traditional American social norms, in which
a woman was expected to prioritize the needs of her husband and family
above her own. It is therefore worth noting that Jump’s novel resolves with
a clear reversal of these norms: the hero must discard his past life for the
sake of the heroine. Readers witness the hero undergoing a radical
personal transformation, from a traditional, career-oriented patriarch into
the strong but supportive, relationship-focused hero of a Nora Roberts
novel. Cade ultimately walks away from a prestigious position at his
father’s law firm to help his wife with her coffee shop. In fact, the book
ends with the family reunited in a second branch of their coffee shop,
where Melanie and Cade renew their wedding vows. Their daughter, a
college student, also works for them part-time. The small business has
become an analogue for their family, and their plans to open more
branches can be read as a mutually acceptable method for expanding their
family tree.
The narrative tension in Shirley Jump's story arises from the traumatic
recent event that separated the protagonists: Melanie had a second
unexpected pregnancy, only a year ago, but this time she lost the baby.
With her career-consumed husband yet again away on business, she had to
suffer through this alone and afterwards filed for divorce, refusing to
discuss the miscarriage with Cade. But the protagonists’ eventual
confrontation about this emotional event (227) does not take the direction
that readers have been expecting — we learn that Melanie had not left
Cade because of anger but because of shame. In the book’s climax,
Melanie confesses to Cade that she had felt "relieved" to escape another
round of motherhood:
Her voice cracked and shattered, and the tears streamed down her
cheeks, coupled with a clenching guilt that made her want to run from the
room, to hide this other, awful Melanie from him.
"What kind of wife feels this way? What kind of mother does that
make me?"
"Oh, Melanie, you're entitled to want something for yourself." (232)
For an American market, a heroine’s miscarriage is probably as close

to an abortion as a HQN plot could safely venture, and the emotional
weight of Melanie’s response matches not just how a woman might feel
after a miscarriage but also how American women are expected to feel if
they choose to terminate a pregnancy. Cade had wanted a second child;
however, his understanding acceptance, which Melanie had never
expected, makes it possible for them to return to their marriage with
renewed faith in one another. Rather than children, they will produce
coffee shops; these shops are named “Cuppa Life” and “Cuppa Life
Deux,” emphasizing the second shop’s role as a substitute for the baby that
they lost, as well as the couple’s opportunity for a second chance at life.
This resolution typifies a more modern and realistic type of HQN
romance. By allowing the heroine to value and keep her new-found
independence, depicting a hero who makes his relationship with his family
his top priority, and offering a romantic model of cooperation and
compromise, the story conveys a strongly feminist message.
%HFDXVH +DUOHTXLQ 7UNL\H VHOHFWV WKH ERRNV WKH\ WUDQVODWH , ZDV
originally predisposed to read their choice of Back to Mr. and Mrs. as a
response to its content, perhaps as part of a lingering Kemalist project to
promote Westernization and modernize through translation. Later,
KRZHYHU , GLVFRYHUHG WKDW WKH øVWDQEXO RIILFH VHOHFWV texts based on
Amazon.com customer star ratings, an adorable surprise but one which
XQGHUPLQHG P\ LQWHUSUHWLYH SODQV +DUOHTXLQ 7UNL\H OLNH LWV KRPH
company, publishes novels that represent a range of social values, from
conservative (such as sheik romances and Christian romances) to more
progressive stories. In some ways, the spectrum of social values in the
United States and the Republic of Turkey is similar, with socially
progressive believers in secular government — Democrats and Kemalists
— on one end and political and/or religious conservatives — Republicans
and members of the AKP — on the other. But these rough analogues are
by no means exact, making the social meaning of a novel’s content
inherently unstable. For example, because of differing cultural norms
about adult children’s relationship with their parents, the scene in which
Cade defies his father for the sake of his wife might seem noteworthy to a
Turkish reader but unremarkable to an American reader. In contrast,
popular attitudes towards abortion are probably more conservative and
conflicted in the United States than in the Republic of Turkey, where
abortion has been legal for thirty years and, at least until recently,
unchallenged.
While the decision to translate Jump’s text cannot be interpreted as a
commentary on its content, the translation itself introduces multiple
avenues for adaptation. The translator of %LUùDQV'DKD did not alter the
plot. Nonetheless, her changes to small details in the text have a
cumulative effect of working against the novel’s progressive elements. The
translator at first appears to have adhered faithfully to the source-text,
sentence by sentence, even keeping some references to American pop
culture (e.g. Stepford Wives, 5HVXUUHFWLQJ <RXU 0DUULDJH IRU 'XPPLHV)
that would probably convey little to Turkish readers. Some tweaks make
everyday details conform to the Turkish experience. For instance, the hero
in the original notes the heroine’s pleasant aroma of “cookies, homemade
bread” (48), while the Turkish language hero smells “o|UHN” (23), a
Turkish breakfast pastry. The Turkish Melanie now kisses rather than hugs
her best friend. Similarly, obscure references to Christianity are
occasionally cut; while in the English version, someone asks Melanie to
“call Bingo for the Ladies’ Auxiliary” (7), this is understandably
transformed in the Turkish version into taking a neighbor’s dog for a
walk.2
Among these small changes, two particular patterns emerge, seemingly
directed towards a particular type of rewriting. These patterns revolve
around the heroine’s social class and her gendered characteristics. Such
changes result in an adaptation undertaken by the translator, working at
cross-purposes to Shirley Jump. The translator’s adaptation also
undermines the guidelines of +DUOHTXLQ7UNL\HE\DOWHULQJWKHFKDUDFWHUV
giving the novel a more socially conservative message yet perhaps, for
Turkish readers, improving the book by making the plot seem more
plausible and the heroine more accessible.
First, I’d like to consider the issue of social class. While Cade remains
a corporate attorney in the Turkish version, his wife fares less well after
translation. In the Turkish version, she has opened a cafeteria instead of a
coffee house. Both cafés and coffee houses are common features of the
Turkish urban landscape, and the word café itself is translated as kafe in
Turkish, hardly a stumbling block for a translator. A cafeteria in the
2
Some scholars have documented a local practice of adapting the form of the
popular romance novel to address religious concerns, most particularly for Muslim
readers in Bangladesh and Nigeria and for Christian readers in the United States
(see Huq 133-61, Whitsitt 137-53, Clawson 461-79). Such adaptations are explicit
attempts to capitalize on the stories’ wide appeal with women and leverage the
pedagogical potential of these novels. This raises the question of whether
Harlequins translated for Turkish women might reveal similar adaptations. While
Turkey’s population is predominantly Muslim, the HQN translations I’ve studied
so far have not added any Islamic elements. Instead, by removing potentially
untranslatable references to Christian practices, the translations have the
interesting, and probably unintended, effect of making the novels more secular.
Republic of Turkey is, like its counterpart in the United States, a utilitarian
place without many pleasant connotations. Melanie’s best friend, a soccer
mom who lives with her family on a grassy eight acres (over 30,000
square meters) in the American version, and whose husband’s recreational
purchases include all-terrain vehicles and jet-skis (65-66), has also taken
several steps down the socioeconomic ladder in the Turkish translation.
Her family has been relocated to a spartan “street full of buildings”
(“binalarla doludar bir cadde” 32) surrounded by asphalt (“asfalt”). While
the English-language Kelly laments that her husband “has more toys than
our ten-year-old” (66), the Turkish-language Kelly instead characterizes
his behavior as childlike: “RQ \DúÕQGD ELU R÷ODQGDQ IDUNVÕ]” (“he is no
different than a ten-year-old” 33). This replaces his conspicuous
consumption with a more generic immaturity. All of these changes, I
would argue, make Turkish Melanie less affluent.
What is behind this translation? I see at least two possibilities, both
related to making the characters more realistic and less foreign. First, it
may stem from expectations that a divorced woman would not fare well
financially. Compared to the United States, in the Republic of Turkey
divorce is relatively rare, at a rate of only 3.3% of ever-married women
between the ages of 18-49 (Hacettepe University 44). Further, paid
employment for Turkish women remains a problem, with an overall rate of
only 31%; the employment rate remains low even for divorced or
separated women, at 39.9% (Hacettepe University 48-49). While it would
therefore seem plausible to Turkish readers that Melanie might finish her
formal education with a high school degree, not work outside the home
when married, and find a job when she divorced, having a woman
successfully manage her own business is relatively exotic (only 3.4% of
high-school educated women are employers in the Republic of Turkey
(Hacettepe University 53)). Second, Cade’s job may not seem as imposing
to Turkish readers. A corporate attorney in the United States has completed
a competitive graduate degree; in Turkey, in contrast, an avukat requires
RQO\DQXQGHUJUDGXDWHGHJUHH$SROOFRQGXFWHGE\+417UNL\HRQWKHLU
Facebook site found that their readers’ preferred heroes were, in order of
popularity, millionaire businessmen, princes, and cowboys (Yerlikaya).3
3
Interestingly, scholarship on popular romance in translation suggests that reading
about affluent Americans, while appealing to some international readers, also has
its own costs, in that it can make readers dissatisfied with their own lives. A reader
interviewed by Parameswaran reported: “We like to read about people's lives in
foreign countries today. The cars they drive, food they eat, their parties, houses
they live in, dresses they wear, places they go to" (839). This description shows a
fascination and pleasure in depictions of consumerism. At the same time, Jyoti Puri
Cade in translation, like Melanie, may have taken a step down the socio-
economic ladder.
While the meaning of Melanie’s changed social status is ambiguous,
there is another pattern of change throughout the book that undermines
Jump’s progressive message and reaffirms traditional gender roles. The
translator’s small changes consistently make the women more
stereotypically feminine and less intelligent, while emphasizing Cade’s
competence and intelligence. A woman in the source-text mentions how
much she hated high school grammar (10), a dislike shared by men and
women alike; in the translation, she now also remembers hating math (7),
evoking a gendered association that Jump scrupulously avoided. Melanie’s
daughter played soccer for her school in the source-text (18), but is no
longer a student athlete in the translation; while it could be argued that the
idea of college women playing soccer would be strange to Turkish readers,
soccer could easily have been changed to volleyball, a highly competitive
women’s sport. References to Melanie’s intelligence and competence are
regularly deleted or deemphasized, as with the detail that she’d graduated
in the top of her class (15). Her husband’s observations that she is
“intelligent, witty, cool under pressure [and] business savvy” (45) are also
cut. When the American Cade praises Melanie for succeeding in a specific
difficult business transaction, he tells her, “You made that save, Melly,”
emphasizing her competence (59); the Turkish Cade says, “You always
save me, Mellie” (“6HQGDLPDEHQLNXUWDUÕUGÕQ0HOOLH,” 29), an alteration
which suggests not so much competence as general redemptive powers.
Given the translator’s need to abridge the source-text, these changes
could be attributed to chance. However, at the same time, the translator
frequently adds material to her descriptions of Cade, especially
editorializing on his comments. For instance, “He knew” (33) is modified
as “He said in a confident voice” (“kendinden emin bir sesle” (18)). When
Cade finds himself distracted by the heroine’s proximity, the Turkish
language version emphasizes his focus on intellect and problem-solving
with this new sentence: “He had to act rationally and find a solution”
(“DNÕOFÕGDYUDQPDOÕELUo|]P\ROXEXOPDOÕ\GÕ” (27).
The heroine’s appearance is also transformed. Shirley Jump made
consistently careful efforts to fight against unreasonable beauty
expectations for women, with regular references to the natural aging
process and suggestions that the heroine should be satisfied with her
ordinary appearance. The American Melanie finds her wedding ring is
found that the books fostered “social anxieties [among readers] due to the
difference between the content of the novels and the sociocultural context in which
they are read” (Puri 434-52).
snug: “she’d gained a couple dozen pounds in the years of marriage” (21).
She has freckles and modest cleavage. The Turkish Melanie, in contrast,
conforms to beauty ideals, as the translator carefully undoes Jump’s “real
beauty” campaign — for example, the extra weight and freckles have
disappeared, while her “curves” (85) are transformed into a thin waist
(“ince bel” 39). These changes also make Cade a less romantic figure,
someone who desires an idealized woman rather than someone who is still
madly attracted to his aging wife despite those extra pounds.
Early research on romance novels in translation (Paizis, Flesch)
suggests that producing a Harlequin in another language is akin to
rewriting it; Flesch found that novels translated into French often made the
heroine less confident and experienced than in the source-text. As
Lamprinou explains in her essay on romance in translation, the pleasure of
reading genre fiction such as popular romance depends on “effortless”
reading, a result of cultural textual norms shared by both authors and their
audiences: “[W]hen a romance addresses an audience with a mother
tongue different from that of the author’s, [...] the effective sharing of
norms will depend on the mediating role of the translator” (Lamprinou).
Characters who behave too oddly would disrupt the experience of
immersive reading. At the same time, we must remember that HQN
romances’ foreign origin and setting are part of the books’ appeal, so the
translator’s task is even more complicated. In fact, when considering the
cultural textual norms, we have to include popular ideas about what
constitutes American behavior. We can see evidence of this concern within
the translation itself, such as the transformation of “my soccer mom
image” (64-65) to “my image as a typical American mother who is
married and has children” (“HYOL YH oRFXNOX WLSLN ELU $PHULNDOÕ DQQH
ÕPDMÕP” 32); “soccer mom” connotes a very specific demographic,
whereas the translated version emphasizes the character’s nationality while
conjuring whatever image of a “typical” American mother the reader
fancies. The translator has thus reshaped the characters, retaining traits
familiar or appealing to their new audience but airbrushing distracting
details from the picture. The result is an adaptation based on reader
expectations — at the very least, to the expectations of the particular
reader who served as the translator.
At the beginning of this chapter, I quoted Lefevere’s statement that
translation has “the intention of influencing the way in which [a different]
audience reads the work” (Lefevere 235). Applying this enticing idea
would require an ethnographic approach in order to identify with any
confidence the intention, the person or persons who have this intention, or
even the audience. My study of %LUùDQV'DKD reveals the difficulty of this
project. HQN as an international enterprise no doubt has intentions for the

translations, at the very least that they make a profit, entice people to
purchase future books, and help create a larger readership. Arda Gedik, the
force behind HQN’s Turkish publications for nearly two decades, saw
these books as providing progressive role models: in contrast to the
“conservative class of the community, [...] our Turkish women readers like
the heroines who are independent, and want [to] follow their samples
[examples] and adopt their way of thinking and acting” (Gedik). The
intentions of the anonymous translator are not possible to assess based
solely on the text alone, although the challenging conditions under which
+41 7UNL\H¶V WUDQVODWRUV FRPSOHWH WKHLU ZRUN PDNH LW OLNHO\ WKDW DQ\
appearance of an agenda was in fact the result of a number of small,
independent decisions.
Finally, a translation such as this one, while significantly changed from
the original, is an adaptation invisible to a number of its audiences,
including its publishers and its intended readers. Recognizing such texts as
adaptations should in theory allow us to test what effect the knowledge
that they are consuming an adaptation has on an audience. For example,
how might this affect the audience’s sense of authenticity, or their belief
that they are seeing a different culture in action? How might the
knowledge that they are reading an adaptation change their reading style?
Would it make them more critical? While I recognize that some readers
from adaptation studies may consider this particular case to be pushing the
boundaries of what we consider adaptation, I believe that studying these
translations as adaptation can offer a deeper understanding of adaptation
itself.
This project was made possible by a grant from the Romance Writers of
America, whose support of scholarship is helping to invigorate research in
the field of popular romance studies. , DP H[WUHPHO\ JUDWHIXO WR øUHP
<HUOLND\D DQG KHU FROOHDJXHV DW +DUOHTXLQ 7UNL\H WKHLU NLQGQHVV DQG
generosity of spirit allowed me to gain a backstage view of the translation
process. *RRG IRUWXQH LQWURGXFHG PH WR $OL 2QXU ùHQJO UHVHDUFK
assistant and friend, who kept his patience and sense of humor through the
months we needed to back-translate %LUùDQV'DKD.
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Huq, Maimuna. “From Piety to Romance: Islam-Oriented Texts in
Bangladesh.” New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public
Sphere. Ed. Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1999. 133-161. Print.
Jump, Shirley. Back to Mr and Mrs. Toronto: Harlequin, 2007. Print.
—. %LUùDQV'DKDøVWDQEXO+DUOHTXLQ7UNL\H3ULQW
Lamprinou, Artemis. “Translated Romance: The Effect of Cultural Textual
Norms on the Communication of Emotions.” Journal of Popular
Romance Studies 2.1 (2011). Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
Lee, Linda J. "Guilty Pleasures: Reading Romance Novels as Reworked
Fairy Tales." Marvels and Tales 22.1 (2008). Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
Lefevere, André. “Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System and
Refraction in a Theory of Literature.” The Translation Studies Reader.
Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. 233-
50. Print.
McClone, Melissa. Marriage for Baby. Toronto: Harlequin, 2007. Print.
—. .ǌoǌN0HOHNøVWDQEXO+DUOHTXLQ7UNL\H3ULQW
Paizis, George. “Category Romance: Translation, Realism and Myth.” The
Translator 4.1 (1988): 1-24. Print.
Parameswaran, Radhika. “Reading Fictions of Romance: Gender,
Sexuality, and Nationalism in Postcolonial India.” Journal of
Communication 52.4 (2002): 832-851. Print.
Puri, Jyoti. “Reading Romance Novels in Postcolonial India.” Gender &
Society 11.4 (1997): 434-452. Print.
Whitsitt, Novian. “Islamic-Hausa Feminism Meets Northern Nigerian
Romance: The Cautious Rebellion of Bilkisu Funtuwa.” African
Studies Review 46.1 (2003): 137-153. Print.
Wolf, Michaela. “Culture as Translation — and Beyond: Ethnographic
Models of Representation in Translation Studies.” Crosscultural
Transgressions. Ed. Theo Hermans. Manchester and Kindershook, NY:
St. Jerome Publishing, 2002. 180-192. Print.
Yerlikaya, Irem. Personal interview. 2 Apr. 2012.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE BALKANIZATION
OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE:
CHALLENGES AND EXPERIENCES
OF CROSS-CULTURAL
ACADEMIC ADAPTATION1
MUSTAFA BAL
Writing implicitly on the forthcoming tragic fate of the region and in a

rather prophetic narration, Ivo Andric tells us the following in his classic
novel The Bridge on the Drina:
Perhaps even in those far-off times, some traveler passing this way, tired
and drenched, wished that by some miracle this wide and turbulent river
were bridged, so that he could reach his goal more easily and quickly. For
there is no doubt that men had always, ever since they first travelled here
and overcame the obstacles along the way, thought how to make a crossing
at this spot, even as all travelers at all times have dreamed of a good road,
safe travelling companions and a warm inn. Only not every wish bears
fruit, nor has everyone the will and the power to turn his dreams into
reality (22).
Dreams came into reality, and upon the order of the Grand Vizier
0HKPHW 3DúD 6RNRORYLF D VWDWHO\ EULGJH ZDV EXLOW RQ WKH ULYHU 'ULQD LQ
1577 by the famous Ottoman architect Sinan.
Evliya Çelebi, on the other hand, in his Seyahatname, portrayed the
land with the following words:
1
This work was presented in 2011 at the Sixth Annual Association of Adaptation
Studies Conference, “The Intellectual Silk Road: Cross-Media and Cross-Cultural
Adaptations.” A more comprehensive form of it as an article was later published by
the journal English Teaching: Practice and Critique in December 2012, (11.4: 178-
89). This chapter is based on the presentation given at the conference.
The Balkanization of English Language and Literature 173
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(223)2
Such an account I myself as a Turk could hardly understand, in a

language that now sounds poetic because of its now obscure form, and
deciphering what it said summed up other reasons for my cultural
exploration around Sarajevo.
Therefore, having read The Bridge on the Drina and lived my
adolescence seeing and hearing all the atrocities in the region between
1992 and 1999; and with some curiosity for a cultural search within a past
I was not able to access from my homeland, I took the decision to resign
from my position at a Turkish state university and become “the dreamy
traveler” Andric imagined in his novel when I received a job offer from a
university project in Sarajevo. After all, the city, the country, and the
whole region embodied some untold and untaught but shared history and
culture which made it a place of wonder for a Turkey-born-Turk. Nowhere
else in the world other than Bosnia displayed a stronger dichotomy of
feelings of love and hatred at the same time for the same nation – Turks –
and I wanted to experience it directly.
The Bosnia-Herzegovina I went to in 2006 was a post-war country.
The Dayton Agreement, ending the war in 1995, was what one could
easily call a postmodern treaty as it officially supported the end of the war
as well as all systems, and bringing nothing anew to stabilize the country
and rehabilitate peoples there. It only ended the war with weapons but
strengthened the fragmentation and nationalism as it officially recognized
the establishment of a country within a country, the Republika Srpska
(Republic of Serbia), which was the major reason of conflict to start the
war. Governmentally, the new federation included Bosnian Muslims,
Catholic Croats, and Orthodox Serbs, each represented by a president in
the parliament, and no laws could be put into effect before earning the
consent of all these three presidents. Considering the totally detached
benefits and goals of these three separate nations in the same country, law-
making or law-enforcing were always chaotic processes. In addition, the
federation of presumably three and a half million people was divided into
2
This passage from Seyahatname is Evliya Çelebi’s description in Ottoman
Turkish of Sarajevo. It depicts the city as a hilly land through which Milecka river
flows, with houses surrounded with gardens and characterized with their roof-tiles.
174 Chapter Eighteen
ten cantons, each with their own parliaments, ministries, and other related
organizational units. In addition to these parliaments (which were
supervised by the Federation Parliament) a European council called the
Office of the High Representative (OHR) oversaw all administrative acts
in the country. Therefore, governmentally, the country was extremely
divided (both Ivo Andric and Evliya Çelebi would need three times longer
lives to be able to narrate the region in its present form.) As a country in
the making, Bosnia-Herzegovina of 2006 was torn into many pieces, and
thereby rendered even more difficult the establishment of our university,
as well as an English Language and Literature department as one of its
programs.
In such a politically tense and administratively chaotic atmosphere, I
joined a team of professors in order to establish a private university in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. I should start by telling of the challenges we faced
while establishing an English program in Sarajevo, first by mentioning the
clash of educational cultures between how I knew it in the Republic of
Turkey and how it was in the host country. To begin with, the concept of a
private university was totally new back then in 2005 in Bosnia. Our
project, the International University of Sarajevo, was the first serious
venture that intended to introduce the campus university concept designed
to attract students from all over the world, giving generous scholarships to
the most successful learners while charging others expensive tuition fees.
The university also introduced numerous assessment components,
established interactive and technology-assisted learning environments, and
created interdisciplinary programs whose curricula allowed minor or
double major programs. In contrast to this new structure that the
International University of Sarajevo would bring to the country was a
university system in which there were separate faculties and schools, no
idea of a unifying rector as the head of the academia, yearly oral exams as
the ultimate assessment component, powerful professors with
unquestionable rights, and old fashioned methods of education. In addition
to these, and rather particularly of English Literature studies, what was
more surprising than the rest was that the whole education of English
language programs – even at the level of PhD dissertation writing – was
conducted in the Bosnian language. At a deeper level, this clash between
these two educational perspectives could be read as the clash between
American and the Iron Curtain higher education systems. The Cold War of
economic systems had ended years ago but academia, paradoxically
enough, had the most conservative minds which accept change very
slowly.
Furthermore, bureaucratic obstacles contributed considerably to the

challenges of the unwelcoming setting of the country, in which we were
trying to found an English department. For example, it took six months for
a well-known senior professor to be appointed as the Rector of the
university, as the appointment had to be made through a judicial system.
Apart from administrative positions, recruiting a professor, an instructor,
even a research assistant for academic jobs had to follow many slow
procedures. Nostrification, in other words the recognition of degrees
obtained from foreign countries, for example, was one of the most difficult
and slowest procedures. I met several people who were expecting the
completion of their application for more than one and a half year. Mine
took six months only because I and the head of the nostrification
committees for English degrees in the country were working together on
the initial stages of the program. What is more, academics could apply for
the nostrification process only if they had taken their degrees in-country.
For this reason, the general secretary of the university, for example, had to
work for the institution as a high school graduate, although he held a BA
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other bureaucratic obstacles, the first condition for a graduate student to be
appointed as a research assistant was to have one year of experience,
which meant that we could never recruit a promising student of our own as
an assistant right after their graduation. Work and resident permits took
months to be issued and had to be renewed annually. Due to all such
bureaucratic hardships, it took two years for one of my colleagues with a
degree from an American university to be appointed.
What I have mentioned up to now may mainly be considered as
external difficulties impeding our determination to run an English
Language and Literature program in Sarajevo. There were internal
challenges, too. The first of these was related to the general student
profile. The university accepted students from all over the world, but the
majority of students came from the Republic of Turkey, primarily because
the entire budget of the institution came from that country, as well as the
fact that in 2006 female students with head scarves were not allowed to
attend higher education institutions in-country. Due to its Ottoman-
Islamic-Turkish background, as well as the freedom from clothing
restrictions, Sarajevo provided a safe haven for such students; in terms of
teaching English Literature, this led to a once-in-a-life time cross-cultural
experience. Most Turkish students had been educated in religious schools,
with Arabic as their first language; now they had the opportunity to learn
and practice in English. This was not an easy adaptive process: during the
initial stages of their education, these students would confine themselves
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would be built into most of their statements. However literature courses
required them to indulge in a “willing suspension of disbelief,” as
Coleridge terms it (6) and embrace secular and liberal values. The greatest
task for our students was to leave aside prejudices and open up their minds
to literatures and cultures using the English language. Introduction and
background courses were always the most difficult ones to teach; the
mythology course, for example, would come as a shock not because of the
plurality of myths, but rather because students witnessed – perhaps for the
first time – the nude representation of mythological characters, as well as
reading about myths depicting sexual relations. The most difficult times of
my teaching career took place while I was trying to be euphemistic and
politically correct in narrating to my conservative students the myths that
described the various forms – as himself, as a swan or a cloud – Zeus
coupled with, violated, raped, and had sexual intercourse with a variety of
male and female partners. Another example of difficulties emerged in the
literature survey course. Studying John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,”
analyzing concepts like the wisdom behind one’s individuality, freedom of
choice against the suffocating orders of customs, and self-control as
opposed to the control by the community were very difficult to teach to a
group of students who believed in the superiority of the community over
the individual. However, it should be noted that, in due course, there
appeared clearly observable progress in our students’ perspectives, and
they turned out to be English language and literature students who
acquired a comprehensive knowledge of cultures at both extremes of the
world. By their final year, in one of their novel courses, they were reading
and discussing a novel with homoerotic scenes.
Within three years, however, there were certain obstacles – both
internal and external – that impeded the development of our program. The
university administration decided to close the English Language and
Literature program in order to replace it with an English Language
Teaching (ELT) program. The only reason for this was that Turkish
students needed a certificate of pedagogy to be appointed as English
teachers in Turkish state secondary and high schools. Although all of those
certificate courses were given to our students as area elective courses by
the department, they were not formally accepted as a suitable qualification.
The problem had another dimension which made it more complex:
students from Bosnia and other parts of the world did not need such a
certificate to become an English teacher in the institutions run by their
states. Many students and professors of the department were demoralized,
many arguments and debates were held, and eventually the department’s
fate was not sealed; it has survived to this day.
The challenges and obstacles of working in Sarajevo were many and
diverse including the difficulty of finding professors, the lack of resources
like an established library, insufficiency in English proficiency levels of
the students, the clash of cultures among student groups, and so on.
Nonetheless, the whole experience in Sarajevo for about five years can be
summarized as a series of “continually assertive attempts to
counterbalance clashes of diverse cultures in order to run an English
language and literature program.” It was the clash of cultures in the
university: Eurasian cultures clashed with Balkan cultures, contemporary
Turkish cultures clashed with contemporary Bosnian cultures,
contemporary Turkish youth cultures clashed with contemporary Bosnian
youth cultures, contemporary conservative Turkish youth cultures clashed
with contemporary conservative Bosnian youth cultures, the clash between
non-conservative/secular Bosnian youth and their opponents, and a
minority of international students from Malaysia, Sudan, and Indonesia
trying to interact with all the rest of the majority student groups, and
private university cultures clashing with unreformed state university
cultures. The Croats clashed with the Serbs, the Serbs and the Croats
together clashed with the Bosnians, the European Union clashed with the
Republic of Turkey and the United States for domination and power over
the land, regulations of the university transported from Turkish
universities clashed with the Bosnian higher education regulations (in such
a “peaceful” atmosphere, we were trying to set up and run an English
Language and Literature program.) However, it should be noted that all
these oppositions could be turned to positive interactions by the
undefeatable synergy of the university youth.
To conclude, it would be proper to state that educational cultures
evolve through time and adapt themselves to the temporal and spatial
contexts they are produced in. When the English Language and Literature
departments were opened in British universities, they must have aimed at
the study and transfer of the language and what it added to their cultures to
the current and next generations. When the English Language and
Literature department was opened at Ankara University in 1936, it aimed
to contribute to the so-called Turkish Renaissance of the new republic. The
idea of establishing an English Language and Literature program in a
conflict region in the West Balkans in a war-worn country that was
confronting its recent painful past, a country with religiously tripartite
nations of the same Slavic origin, with mostly Turkish and conservative
students and students from thirteen other countries, was truly a

multicultural experiment and an eye-brow raising adaptive experience.
Works Cited
Andric, Ivo. The Bridge on the Drina. Trans. Lovett F. Edwards. Chicago:
U. of Chicago Press, 1977. Print.
Bal, Mustafa. “English language and literature in the post-war Bosnia and
Herzegovina: Challenges and experiences of a transcultural academic
adaptation.” English Teaching: Practice and Critique 11.4 (Dec. 2012):
178-89.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria: Volume II. 1817. Ed. J.
Shawcross. Oxford and London: Oxford UP. 1965. Print.
Evliya Çelebi. Seyahatnamesi (GV <]HO 'D÷OÕ 6H\LW $OL .DKUDPDQ
øEUDKLP6H]JLQøVWDQEXO<DSÕ.UHGL<D\ÕQODUÕ3ULQW
Mill, John Stuart. “On Liberty.” 1869. Bartleby.com (1999). Web. 23 Jun.
2013.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ADAPTING DRAMA IN THE TURKISH FOREIGN

LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
SEÇIL HORASAN
Every culture is unique and has its own characteristics. There are many
features of cultures that may change from country to country and even
from a city to another. These changes may be traced in different ways and
may sometimes be problematic when individuals from different cultures
meet. Therefore, one should not only learn the language of a country that
s/he visits but also the culture of that country in order to avoid potential
problems that stem from the differences of cultures. In this sense, culture
is inseparable from language and it is that’s why inseparable from teaching
context. That is, in language teaching, culture has a crucial role that cannot
be isolated from the classroom atmosphere. Establishing a closer link
between drama and intercultural education, Fleming highlights the fact
that language is not just a matter of learning linguistics codes, but
somewhat a matter of cultural issues. Thus, he asserts that language and its
socio-cultural context cannot be separated (59).
Integrating culture to the teaching context requires creating an
authentic learning environment which seems difficult but the ideal thing in
English Language Teaching (ELT). It can be successfully achieved if
learners are given the opportunity to engage in different interaction
patterns in which they discuss and exchange ideas on a cultural issue via
using the new language. These higher order communication skills like
negotiating and discussing can be best improved through more enjoyable
and emotional communicative activities such as drama which is in its
nature inevitably learner-centered as it can only exist with active
cooperation (Zafeiriadou). Similarly, Brauer indicates that drama gives
students the chance to have meaningful, authentic situations; thus, teachers
and students co-create the dramatic place for experiences, insights,
interpretations and understandings to occur (55). The educational theorist
Dewey highlights the importance of social learning which requires
Adapting Drama in the Turkish Foreign Language Classroom 181
students’ engagement in active, playful, and collaborative learning (qtd.

Dracup 297). Vygotsky’s concept of social interaction in the 1960s as
opposed to individual learning elevates the participatory teaching to help
learners’ development of self-esteem and self-efficacy (Zafeiriadou).
Nevertheless, not many language teachers are aware of modern
teaching techniques. Rather, they still tend to rely on the traditional
methods which are based on transferring the necessary information,
leading students to memorize, limiting the actual participation, and
assessing the outcome through written exams, rather than the procedure
(Paksoy). She suggests the adaptation of drama as a tool for human
development; likewise, Brown (as cited by Paksoy) elevates the use of
drama for students to learn life-skills such as decision-making and
socialization skills as well as evaluation of themselves. Mont argues that
being a physical activity, drama guarantees movement in class, which is
desired particularly for kinesthetic learners (44). However, she criticizes
that teachers are unaware of the benefits of drama within a learning
context and for her their reluctance to explore such activities stems from
their self-unconsciousness, lack of control, and lack of experience
involving in movements in class. This is the case with many English
teachers in the Republic of Turkey who are reluctant to take part in drama
activities and simply make the students memorize the target structures to
be successful in the written exams (qtd. Paksoy 1). Therefore, it is of
utmost importance to find out the results of studies on drama adaptation to
the language teachers so as to show them its benefits and encourage them
to make use of it in their own contexts.
Having considered the abovementioned fact that language cannot be
isolated from its culture and these can both be best taught through
authentic activities and social participation, I aim in this chapter to explore
the merits of drama in ELT are as a means to create an authentic
atmosphere and to promote social learning. I find it critical to prove the
benefits of drama in language teaching and would like my analysis to
serve as a model for language teachers. I conducted a case study on my
three classes in which I adapted drama as a tool to provide an opportunity
for students to discuss a cultural issue while encouraging participation.
Consisting of three different classes with their own dynamic in its
scope, this study tries to make sense of the results. However, naturally not
every student is kinesthetic and extrovert enough to have the courage to
take part in acting out. Therefore, student personalities were taken into
consideration during the implementation of the case study, although it was
strongly believed that drama has its power to encourage those students to
gradually become more active, which is the aim of the present study.
182 Chapter Nineteen
Drama has its roots from the ancient times and was defined by Wessels
(87-92) as doing and being normal. Stern glorified drama as a means to
heighten self-esteem, motivation, and spontaneity, to increase capacity,
and to decrease sensitivity to rejection, which all facilitate communication
and also provide a psycholinguistic atmosphere for language learning
(115-33). In terms of learning, Dougill also stated that as an educational
tool, drama fosters the social, intellectual and the linguistic development
of a child (6). All these statements received remarkable attention from
researchers in the Republic of Turkey – HVSHFLDOO\ LQ (/7 .|\OR÷OX
3DNVR\ ,QDQ dLWDN DQG 0HQJ 7KHVH DUH YDULRXV WKHVHV RQ WKH
adaptation of drama in the ELT context in The Republic of Turkey:
'HPLUFLR÷OX IRU LQVWDQFH DLPHG WR VHH WKH HIIHFWV RI GUDPD RQ WHDFKLQJ
vocabulary, whereas Çitak analyzed the importance of teaching grammar
through drama to young learners. Finding it essential for training student
WHDFKHUV WR DGDSW GUDPD LQ WKHLU FODVVHV 0HQJ IRFXVHG RQ GHVLJQLQJ
materials for drama courses in ELT departments, while Inan investigated
the effectiveness of games, music, and drama as edutainment activities in
vocabulary teaching and found that students learn better through these
activities.
In her experimental study on an experiment and control group to see
the effects of drama adaptation in language cODVVHV.|\OR÷OXSURYHGWKH
power of drama over traditional methods. In another experimental study,
Paksoy aimed to investigate the effectiveness of drama on the self-esteem
and oral language skills in teaching English as a Foreign Language. The
statistical analysis revealed the positive effects of drama and indicated that
there were significant differences in the group adapting drama. Uzer aimed
to show the role of drama on effective English teaching by bringing real-
life situations into the classroom to provide students with meaningful
communication. The starting point of this study was the researcher’s
strong belief and observation that students in the Republic of Turkey
cannot use the language for communication in real life. She believes that
drama takes students somewhere outside the classroom by lessening the
tension, leading to improvement of speaking skills as well as increased
motivation.
In my own experiment, I worked with three different classes at a
private university in Ankara. The students have thirty hours of classes
every week, five of which are listening-speaking classes which mostly
focus on listening. They were informed in advance about the fact that they
would take part in a scientific study in one of their classes; however, they
were not explicitly informed that it would be specifically a drama activity.
The activity was integrated as a role-play activity in their listening-
speaking classes, in which the course book called Contemporary Topics

was studied. The role-play activity was adapted from the first unit which
was about names. Students were first encouraged to discuss the meaning
of names, to think why they were given their names, to think whether they
associate a name with a certain characteristics, to discuss the interesting
names in their cultures. Then, they were given the instructions that they
would form groups of four according to the colors of the role-play cards
that would be distributed to them after the instructions. Color-coding
would help them to form their groups without causing any chaos in class.
They were informed that in each group there would be a mother, a father
and either other family members or different people like friends or doctors.
In each group the mother would be pregnant and the aim of the group
members was to find a name to the baby. Students were informed that a
boy might have a role-card of the mother while a girl might be a father.
The teacher encouraged the students not to change their cards but try to act
that person out. What’s more the teacher encouraged them to use
accessories and materials to be like the people on their role-cards as much
as possible. The teacher set the time limit so that all the groups would
finish and be ready to watch the other groups. Moreover, the teacher
informed the students that at the end of the performance of each group,
other groups would fill in a rubric about the performance and the winning
group would be rewarded. After that, the teacher distributed the cards and
students formed groups and completed the activity. At the end, they were
asked to fill in a short questionnaire about how the students felt before,
during, and after the activity.
Drama is an activity which asks the participants to portray themselves
in an imaginary situation (Holden). The aim of the study was to make use
of drama as a tool to crate authentic learning atmosphere and to ensure
socialization by actual participation. A semi-structured role-play activity
was used in three different classes in a case study to observe the benefits
of drama in ELT. The observations and the findings indicated that drama is
very effective in that students can improve their speaking skills, get highly
motivated in role-play activities, willingly participate in the role-play, and
make actual use of language without feeling the tension of grammatical
accuracy or correct form of the vocabulary items. The findings were
consistent in all three classes. Firstly, it was seen that adapting drama in
language classrooms can be quite powerful to improve students’
communication skills, since they not only have the opportunity to use the
target language but also to make effective use of their body language and
gestures unconsciously. Dracup and Zafeiriadou also believe that the use
of drama is very effective in improving the speaking skills of the learners.
Secondly, in the role-play activity students were observed to be highly

motivated. In one of the classes, it was interesting to observe that a student
who was always prone to sleep in class was among the most motivated
students. This result was also revealed in many other studies focusing on
the effects of drama on language teaching (Dracup). Thirdly, this activity
gave the students to use the target language in a real-life situation. They
made use of their previous experience and tried to include their sense of
humor as well. Therefore, drama provides an authentic use of language
which should be inseparable part of a language class. This also makes
students happy that they actually engage in a conversation that they may
encounter outside the class. As Zafeiriadou states, drama creates situations
with emphasis on social interaction, which facilitates transferring
knowledge from classroom to the outside world.
Moreover, students drew on their cross-cultural knowledge which
cannot be separated from language itself. Since they were familiar with
their own culture, it appeared to be easier from them to talk about and
when it came to learn about other target cultures they happened to be
interested in. Exchanging concepts in different cultures is a great way to
practice language. Role-plays are in this sense of great importance to give
students the chance to engage in cross-cultural discussion. In this way,
students become more and more aware of the culture of the target
language without any explicit persuasion.
Another benefit is that students began to learn how to negotiate in
another language. During their preparation, they were discussing how to
form a dialogue and how to act it out. They were suggesting ideas,
discussing and coming up with one end together. Therefore, drama also
helps them learn how to discuss, how to handle a problem and to find
solutions to problems, how to brainstorm and come up with various ideas.
In this way, they learn the importance of listening to others and respecting
their opinions. They will even be proud of creating so many ideas and be
glad to see the power of brainstorming. One other benefit is that students
engaged in group work which developed their social learning abilities, as
Vygotsky suggests (1978). Sometimes, students may be too shy to ask
something to their teacher loudly in class, but they may freely express
their ideas and feelings to their peers. Therefore, working in groups is a
great solution for these students. In its nature, drama requires several
participants, which thus leads to social learning.
Although there appeared some introverted students who were reluctant
to perform at first, they were encouraged by their peers before the activity
and supported during the activity so that all groups performed well. In
fact, drama can be useful to deal with such students to make them more
participant and comfortable in class. Gullatt argues that drama can be used
to enhance intrapersonal intelligence. Furthermore, students enjoyed both
their own performances and watching the performances of other groups. It
was a break from classroom routine (Sam). In other words, through drama
students set aside the mechanical grammar and vocabulary exercises, went
way beyond the boundaries of writing and forgot the boredom of long
reading texts for a while. Most of the students enjoyed learning more
through these kinesthetic role-play activities than other structured paper-
based activities. If used more frequently drama activities can prepare them
for real-life and unpredictability (Sam), as students become more creative
as they engage more in spontaneous role-plays. Dracup states that the
results of various research and trends in schools shows that participants
thought the role play technique not only had been an effective and
enjoyable means of learning (301).
In the end students were proud of themselves and what their group
achieved. This is true evidence that drama helps participants gain self-
esteem and self-control. As learning English is a long tedious process,
students can lose their motivation and self-esteem at times. Therefore, the
use of drama in English learning process can make the learners build their
self-esteem and self-control (Paksoy). This is highly significant for their
interpersonal relationships, not only with their classmates but also in their
social lives outside school.
Students in one group filled in a rubric for the other groups assessing
their performances in terms of content, fluency, accuracy and creativity.
Giving grades to the other participants was first a kind of power for them;
however, they learned to be fair in their judgment and appreciate the
efforts of others. In addition, the role-play activity ended with a short
questionnaire to gather the ideas of the students on their performances and
perceptions towards the use of the drama and on how they felt before,
during, and after the performance. The answers showed that even though
they felt anxious when they first heard of acting in front of the classroom,
they liked the group work, watching others, their performing and giving
grades to the other groups. It is quite a good idea to ask students reflect on
their performances as it gives the teacher an idea about what to change and
not change in future role-play activities. Drama helps students reflect on
their performances and plan for improvement for their collective futures
(Gullatt). What’s more, drama led students to use appropriate vocabulary
according to context. In this case, it was about naming a baby; thus the
students employed vocabulary such as “to name after, to be called.” Using
accurate structures is inevitably as important as vocabulary use: drama can
help students to reflect more on their grammatical performances, as well as
encouraging teachers to give more constructive feedback. Finally, in this

particular activity drama was used in a speaking lesson for the whole class
hour. However, to increase motivation, to ensure actual engagement, to
make students be accustomed to such playful activities, Mont suggests that
drama be used in establishing the routine of a short physical warm-up at
the beginning of each class or a wrap up in the end of the study.
I have concluded from this case study in three classes that drama has a
profound role in the ELT context, especially in the Republic of Turkey, a
country in which communication skills are largely neglected in language
classes. In any language class in any country, it seems that drama can
serve a powerful tool with its numerous merits. This study shows that
students need to use language in a way that they feel it is useful for daily
life communication and feel encouraged when they realize that they
achieve their goals. Drama gives them the opportunity to engage in social
activities in authentic contexts so that they implicitly become aware of the
culture of the language. They get highly motivated in role-play activities
and have lots of fun. At the same time, they learn how to negotiate,
improve their problem solving and decision making skills, learn to respect
and listen to the others, develop self-esteem, self-control, and self-reliance.
They become careful observers and fair evaluators. They grow to be
mature, creative and confident. Moreover, teachers gain a lot from the
adaptation of drama in their language classes. They can increase the
opportunities for student talking time while decreasing teacher talking
time, which means that they achieve student-centeredness by leading them
to be autonomous learners. More importantly, teachers truly observe their
students and see the outcome in process so that they can assess students’
performances on different skills such as pronunciation. That is, drama
gives the teacher the chance to observe each individual student and to give
feedback. All in all, drama brings innovation to the modern ELT context. If
they happen to face any problems, or they may be hesitant because of lack
of experience and not being ready, they can start with smaller groups with
the right activity and the right encouraging feedback. This study focused
on three classes with one observation in each class. Further study can be
done on more classes on a longer period to observe the real change in
class.
I wish to thank my professor Laurence Raw for his encouragement,

support and cooperation for this study and for the publication of this
paper as well as the student participants in the role plays.
Works Cited
Beglar, David, Michael A. Rost, Neil Murray. Contemporary Topics.
London: Pearson Education Ltd., 1999. Print.
Brauer, Gerd. Intercultural Learning through Drama. Body and Language
3. London: Ablex Publishing, 2002. Print.
dLWDN %HQJ ³7HDFKLQJ (QJOLVK *UDPPDU WR <RXQJ /HDUQHUV WKURXJK
Drama.” MA thesis. Gazi University, Ankara, 2007. Print.
'HPLUFLR÷OXùHULIH. “Teaching English Vocabulary to Young Learners via
Drama.” MA thesis. Gazi University, Ankara, 2008. Print.
Dougill, John. Drama Activities for Language Teaching. London:
Macmillan, 1987. Print.
Dracup, Mary. “Role Play in Blended Learning: A Case Study Exploring
the Impact of Story and Other Elements.” Australasian Journal of
Educational Technology 24.3 (2008): 294-310. Print.
Fleming, Mike. “Justifying the Arts: Drama and Intercultural Education.”
Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1(2006): 54-64. Print.
Gullatt, David E. “Enhancing Student Learning through Arts Integration:
Implications for the Profession.” High School Journal 91.4 (2008): 12-
25. Print.
Holden, Susan. Drama in Language Teaching. London: Longman, 1981.
Print.
øQDQ 6H]LQ. “Investigation into the Effects of using Games, Drama and
Music as Edutainment Activities on Teaching Vocabulary to Young
Learners.” MA thesis. Çanakkale On Sekiz Mart University,
Çanakkale, 2006. Print.
.|\OR÷OX 1LKDO. “Using Drama in Teaching English for Young
Learners.” MA thesis. Selçuk University, Konya, 2007. Print.
0HQJ+DQGH,úÕO. “A Suggested Syllabus for the Drama Teaching Course
in ELT departments.” MA thesis. Hacettepe University, Ankara, 2002.
Print.
Mont, Juliet du. “Movement and Drama in ELT” (2010).
DevelopingTeachers.com. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
Paksoy, Esra. “The Effects of Process Drama on Enhancement of Self-
esteem and Oral Skills in the English Language Classroom.” MA
thesis. Çukurova University, Adana, 2008. Print.
Sam, Wanyee. “Drama in Teaching English as a Second Language – a
Communicative Approach.” The English Teacher 19.11 (1995).
Melta.org. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
Stern, Susan L.. “Why Drama Works: A Psycholinguistic Perspective.”
1980. University of Delaware. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
Uzer, Fatmanur. “Using Drama in Teaching English Effectively.” MA

thesis. Selçuk University, Konya, 2008. Print.
Vygotsky, L. B. Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental
Processes. Trans. Marie J. Hall. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. 1978.
Print.
—. The Collected Works of L. B. Vygotsky Vol. 1: Thinking and Speaking.
Trans. Marie J. Hall. New York: Plenum Press 1987. Print.
Wessels, Charlyn. Drama. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.
Zafeiriadou, Nelly. “Drama in Language Teaching: a Challenge for
Creative Development.” Issues 23 (2009): 3-9. Print.
CHAPTER TWENTY
CULTURAL ISSUES IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON
There is no doubt that the Silk Road and Central Asian region is the
melting pot of different civilizations. The Silk Road served not only as the
channel for the transport of merchandise, but also the medium of which,
forms, styles, fashion, food and music have been transported between the
East and West. The painting, “Abduction of a Lady with her Porcelains,”
from Fatch Album depicts a strange world with people of different
nationalities and walks of life. The picture portrays a Chinese princess
being escorted by the Mongols, which suggests that inter-marriage along
the Silk Road was very common. Much linguistic and cultural diversity
existed.
There are many ways in which the phenomena of language and culture
are intimately related. As we explore cultural issues in language teaching
we will consider examples found along the Silk Road. The modern Silk
Road, so to speak, has changed relatively little in some respects. However,
in other ways far-reaching changes have taken place. Let us consider the
situation in West China. Since the death of Mao Zedong, changes have
reached to the far western province, Sinkiang, also known as East
Turkestan.
One wonders how communication can occur. It is not unusual to notice
DW WKH $WDWUN $LUSRUW LQ øVWDQEXO 7XUNH\ D QXPEHU RI 8LJKXU ZRPHQ
squatting down together trying to be comfortable while they wait to check
in for their flight. This sight always brings back many memories for me:
Sinkiang province in the western part of China is the homeland of Central
Asian Turks who speak the Uighur language. During the 1980s, I visited
there three times for anthropological research purposes among the Turkic-
speaking peoples. Sinkiang has seen even more changes than the rest of
China, as Sinkiang under Mao was always more backward than other parts
of China. Although Sinkiang for the past three decades has been
experiencing major changes and developing more and more, it has not
reached its full potential. It was only in the 1980s that Sinkiang began to
190 Chapter Twenty
very slowly open up to the outside world. After decades of seclusion, in

February 1984 Chinese authorities officially announced that it would be
possible to visit Kashgar. When I heard this I booked a ticket and made a
visit to the province in the summer of 1984.
My first real view was from the back of a donkey cart for tourists.
Houses with courtyards were made of rough yellow earth. Lifestyles
appeared simple and similar to the rural Turkish Republic. Time was not
very important but relationships were valued. Since my visits to Kashgar
modern hotels have been built and the streets have filled with more motor
vehicles than just bicycles and horse and donkey-carts. Others who have
been there since have told me that you can get a bird's eye view from a tall
modern hotel building. If you visit the place today, you can see some
Uighur houses with courtyards stand in stark contrast to big, shiny, white-
tiled, mirrored buildings that have sprung up and reflect the sign of the
times – harbingers of modernity. The Uighurs of Xinjiang province,
situated in the far western part of China, share the same language family as
Turks, known as Ural-Altaic. Not only are there similarities in the
language, but if you happen to visit sometime, you'll see other ones too.
You will observe the faces around you will look as if they had been
transplanted from the plains of Anatolia to this desert oasis in northwest
China. You will also notice while strolling down the streets, whether in
Kashgar or Urumqi, tradespeople are just like those in the Republic of
Turkey – a vibrant, vivid, colorful culture and open markets on the street
are where you can bargain for silk cloth, clothing, tools, lamb, pastries,
vegetables and fruit, especially the delicious grapes. Knife-sharpeners,
coppersmiths, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, craftsmen making local musical
instruments and more each have their own quarter to display and sell their
goods. In order to participate in the bargaining it is necessary to have the
local language skills and be able to speak a little of a few different trade
languages.
The languages we speak shape the way we think. Cultural issues in
language teaching must not be minimized in language study. For example,
the Silk Road has always been attractive to the seller, saint, sinner, and
seer. Hence, there is no doubt that the Silk Road is a melting pot of
different cultures and languages. I guess it is the name that is so inspiring.
It suggests both the mystery of the East and the luxury of silk. Of course,
the Silk Road was not a literal road like the TEM that crosses Europe or
the E-LQ7XUNH\WKDWSDVVHVWKURXJKøVWDQEXO,WZDVDFROOHFWLRQRIURXWHV
connecting north with south, taking goods up towards the Black Sea and
Europe or down towards the Mediterranean or even the Arabian Gulf. You
may imagine a caravan of camels going all the way from northwestern
Cultural Issues in Language Teaching 191
&KLQD WR øVWDQEXO 7KH UHDOLW\ ZDV WKDW PRVW WUDGHVPHQ VKXWWOHG EHWZHHQ
two big cities, traveling back and forth. Goods would go from one caravan
to another, with each city on the route being a staging point. Knowing
more than one language was crucial. It was Charlemagne who said “to
have a second language is to have a second soul” (“The Daily Galaxy.”)
But how was this achieved?
In reference to the piece of art mentioned earlier, “Abduction of a Lady
with her Porcelains,” and other similar work, you can understand through
just the culture, daily life and the excavations of art along the Silk Road
the significant interchange between the East and West. This point cannot
be emphasized enough that from the beginning the Silk Road was not only
a route for trade but also a medium through which forms, ideas,
philosophies and religions as well as styles, fashion, music, food and
especially languages have been transported between East and West.
I am often asked where did the Turks come from: who are the
ancestors of the modern Turks? In short, the arrival of the Turks came
when the ancestors of the modern Turks traveled by horse as nomadic
tribesmen who lived on the steppes of Central Asia in the sixth century
AD. Over the next thousand years, after a series of conquests, different
Turkic clans created a succession of multicultural, multiethnic empires that
stretched from China to the Mediterranean. You may not have ever heard
before now about the group called the Oghuz Turks who moved west to
Transoxiana (roughly modern-day Uzbekistan and southwest Kazakhstan),
where they settled and embraced Islam, before migrating south to Iran. It
was there they founded the Great Seljuk Empire, which created an
inclusive Turkic, Arab and Persian culture. Waves of breakaway tribes
from the Oghuz confederation started entering Anatolia, where each would
establish a kingdom, only to fall to the next Turkic group to come their
way.
Language and communication have always played a major role along
the Silk Road. While you criss-cross Asia and Europe, along the Silk Road
trade routes you are connected to many people who speak many languages
and dialects. Although people and boundaries have shifted over the
centuries, many languages remain and form the mode of communication.
Since medieval times (from about 1200 onwards), Turkic languages have
had the widest geographical expanse of speakers in the region. From
øVWDQEXOWR+DPLLQQRUWKZHVW&KLQDDQGIURPQRUWKHUQ$IJKDQLVWDQWR
the shores of the Arctic Ocean, speakers of Turkic languages represent a
vast continuum of dialects and local forms. It is fascinating to think that
while an Anatolian Turk would not immediately be able to engage an
Uighur from Kashgar (in northwestern China) in a sophisticated
192 Chapter Twenty
conversation, the two could easily conduct a commercial transaction. The

Uighur women I referred to earlier waiting on their IOLJKWDW$WDWUNDLUSRUW
can communicate the basics with the Turkish flight attendant. For instance,
in all Turkic languages, the words for numbers are close or identical.
Another widely spoken language family along the Silk Road, that of the
Indo-European language family which Persian (Farsi) belongs to is the
language used in contemporary Iran; and Pashto and Dari, both from the
Iranian languages sub-family have common words and borrowed words
from Ottoman Turkish and Arabic. Each one functions as important trade
languages in Central and West Asia, along the Silk Road routes. In South
Asia, Urdu and Hindi (they are mutually intelligible when spoken,
although they use different scripts) fill that role, as does Arabic in the
Middle East. Since the 19th century, Russian has been the lingua franca for
much of the population of the central Silk Road region. This development
came about when the Russian tsars’ troops began their conquests and
colonization of Central Asia and the Caucasus, creating the basis for the
Soviet Union's multiethnic empire. While most people in Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan converse easily in Russian, these newly established
independent states are returning to their native languages.
Our basic advice to any traveler along the Silk Road is to be motivated
and observant to the local culture. One of the most important factors in
being able to learn a foreign language is learning – motivation. Nowadays
language books and lessons are available in all the languages spoken along
the Silk Road. You would think that if you have purchased the book and
CD set and/or enrolled yourself in a class to study one of the languages
that you had motivation. You probably did! But when the rubber hits the
road, it’s another story. In the beginning you start with great zeal but the
challenge becomes reality and any effort is not a priority any longer.
Everyone who has studied a foreign language will admit that learning a
foreign language requires hard work. Along with motivation, you should
try to make your language learning enjoyable. When I taught English as a
Second Language to adults years ago Turks often had the idea that if you
had fun in class it was not a lesson. The idea was if it was not serious you
were not learning. The language instructor should seek to create an
atmosphere that allows students to learn and study, while actually enjoying
learning the language.
It is important to emphasize that the student is not only learning how to
speak but how local people think. John Schumann, who has conducted
research on those studying English as a second language in the United
States, states that there are eight variables that affect the language
acquisition of the student (379). Let me just explain that Schumann refers
to this group as the English language learners, and refers to those whose
mother tongue is English as the target language group. Let’s just look
briefly at the eight social variables which Schumann claims affect the
contact the student has with the target language group.
Social dominance is the first social variable. Schumann states that
when English language learners, such as an Arab or Japanese person
learning English in the United States, are politically, culturally, technically
or economically superior to the target language group, which is in this case
Britain or the United States, then it tends to hinder learning the target
language. Schumann’s research points out that on the other hand if the
English language learning group, such as Cubans or Mexicans in the
United States, has a lower socio-economic status than the target language
group, they may resist learning the target language (379-92). You can see
that in either case, there is resistance to learning English well. This is not
to say that English is never learned well when this is the case, but to
illustrate the important fact that attitudes affect progress in language
learning.
Using your communication skills, whether it is orally or silently, you
can command social dominance. Every culture has its own form of body
language. Perhaps you have noticed some of these in your dealings in
social settings where you are. For example, one very common signal is
learning to listen and not interrupt when another person is speaking.
However, in some cultures interrupting another person is not considered
rude, and the one who speaks the loudest has the right to be heard.
In my book, Culture Smart: Turkey, the reader recognizes there are
cultural differences in body language between an English speaker and
Turkish speaker. Let me list a few examples of body language and
communication styles Turks make:
You can say no with a simple tsk sound, or by just raising your eyebrows,
or by making a tsk sound and raising your eyebrows, or by making a tsk
sound and raising your eyebrows and throwing your head up. Each is more
emphatic than the previous one!
A nod of the head is yes.
A shake of the head means I am not sure (so a salesman will keep on with
his patter!)
To say “I don’t know” you just shrug your shoulders.

194 Chapter Twenty
A shrug of the shoulders and raised hands expresses the feeling “what can I
do about it?”
To express to the cook or chef that the meal or dish was tasty and lovely,
you put your thumb to upturned fingers and shake your hand up and down.
When you are offered something and would like to politely refuse put your
flat palm on chest to indicate “no thank you” e.g. when you are full.
Often when the first transaction of the day happens, a shopkeeper will
scrape the edge of a coin on his chin which means “may God bless and
multiply this”.
If you do not like someone or something you shake your collar.
When giving a warning to children wag your index finger saying “Seni
seni…”
To call children to you the simple motion of an outstretched hand with

palm down and bending your fingers forwards and backwards saying “gel
gel” [come, come] will bring them to you.
A brush of the hands together indicates the job is finished.
To ask someone “Are you girlfriend/boyfriend?” you rub index fingers

together side by side.
When drivers get angry they throw their arms up.
When it seems to you that someone is exaggerating, the act of rotating your
hand with palm up saying the sound “oh, oh, oh…” will let them know that
you find it hard to believe what you hear.
Some other points to note are it is rude to show the sole of your feet and to
sit with legs crossed. Also blowing your nose in public nose is offensive.
Too firm of a handshake is considered impolite (159-60).
Turks are very emotional and touchy. Unlike the West it is more common
that physical touch is male/male: female/female. There is little privacy of
body space for same-sex relations: wide body space for different sex. The
spatial concept between those of the same sex is close. People walk arm in
arm or holding hands (even men with men); they sit closer than a visitor
may be used to sitting. In other words, it is not just Turkish which is a
foreign language; you may need to learn a whole new body language.
Other signals associated with language learning and communication relate
to understanding how people in another culture tend to listen. Do they lend

a sense of attention and perhaps lean forward?
Giving the correct non-verbal greeting in another culture is one of the
best sources to help you gain some sense of confidence and social
dominance. A cheerful and smiling greeting (as culturally appropriate) can
win the heart of your community. Also different cultures use their eyes to
communicate in different ways. For example, students learning English
and speaking with an English speaker will notice that eye contact is
important with a normal amount of blinking. Also native English speakers
do not tend to make a lot of extra arm, body and leg movements.
Assimilation, preservation and adaptation are another social variable.
Schumann says if a person chooses assimilation as a way to integrate, it
means he gives up his own lifestyle and values and adopts those of the
target language group (379-92). Similarly, reservation means that the
English language learning group maintains its own lifestyle and values and
rejects those of the target language group. Adaptation means that the
English language learners adapt to the lifestyle and values of the target
language group, but maintain their own lifestyle and values for intra-group
use. Each of these variables can involve personal choice. If you really
want to fit in with the target language group and develop your knowledge
and ability to speak on different topics with confidence, you need to adapt,
be motivated and work hard. The question here is how much do you really
want to fit in? Why is it important for the English language learner to learn
English, or we could ask how important is it for the foreigner living in
Turkey to learn Turkish?
Enclosure is the third social variable. Enclosure refers to the degree to
which the English language learning group and target language group
share the same social constructs such as schools, religious places, clubs,
recreational facilities, crafts, professions and trades. If the two groups
share these social constructs, enclosure is said to be low and second
language acquisition is more easily facilitated.
The fourth social variable is cohesiveness. Have you ever wondered
when studying a second language just how you would progress if you
really gave it your all and spent all your time in and with the target
language group? Unfortunately, many English language learners, when
they go to America or England or Australia or wherever, remain separate
from the target language group. The same happens here in Turkey as
foreigners try to study Turkish at the local language school but then do not
have the opportunity to mix with the Turks after class. The result is
minimal language practice and exposure to culture and more time with
other students studying Turkish.
196 Chapter Twenty
Linguists have been debating how far social distance can explain
variation in the degree of language acquisition. To get around the dilemma
of not having access to mix and mingle with the target language group, I
have noticed more and more privatH VFKRROV LQ øVWDQEXO SDUWLFXODUO\
preschools, are doing everything they can to create an effective English
language learning environment for their young students. If you cannot live
in the target language group community you must create an environment
that is the next best thing.
Cohesiveness influences the level of success the student will have in
learning the second language. You can find communities in every country
that are cohesive. If you are in an English language learner group that has
chosen to be cohesive, since it tends to remain separate from the target
language group, the students will find it more difficult to reach
proficiency. An example of this are the many Turks living in Germany
who often do not learn German well because they are cohesive --
remaining in the Turkish communities for their social life, shopping and
work.
The remaining social variables deal with size, congruence, attitude and
intended length of residence. By size, Schumann explains that if the
English language learner group is large, the intra-group contact will be
more frequent than the contact with the target language group. This can
hinder progress in your language acquisition. A Turkish friend of mine
who lives in California now had her mom come to visit for three months.
Mom, who was in her 40s, loved being with her daughter; however, she
did not like being in America because she could not speak the language
and did not make any friends while visiting there.
Schumann’s research indicates that congruence is paramount. The
more similar the two cultures are, social contact and learning the second
language is potentially more likely to happen. Our social and cultural
access and process in everyday life is a necessity. Schuman helps the
reader understand that language will come more naturally if you share
common interests and places.
Attitude is crucial. It helps if the English language learner and target
language groups have positive attitudes towards each other. If you can
speak another language you can often earn a better salary. In China many
Chinese have not studied English because they wanted to but their
motivation was to receive a scholarship from the government or a better
salary. The language learning experience will be good if the language
learners have a positive attitude towards the target language group. On the
other hand, if the student has a negative attitude towards the target
language group, this can be a hindrance.
A final factor that determines progress in learning a second language is

the intended length of residence. The longer the second language learner
plans to remain in the target language environment, the more motivated he
usually will be.
Some of the challenges in studying Turkish, such as the agglutination,
pronunciation and vowel harmony that you are confronted with as a
beginner student, can be overwhelming. Many students in their initial days
of studying Turkish also find certain expressions puzzling. Using a native
English speaker who is studying Turkish as my example here, let me give
a few examples of how expressions differ:
Yapma ya? Really? Come on! I don’t believe you.

ù|\OHE|\OH. So so, fair to middling
Ne var ne yok? Which means What’s new? What’s up?
Güle güle kullan which literally means Use it happily, smiling. Enjoy it!
Güle güle giyin which literally means Wear it happily, smiling. Enjoy it!
The main point here is the expression can be very different from that in
your own language and often the words in another language can sound
funny to our ears. This can either help you in learning process or put you
right off. For instance, the first time I heard the word estafurullah I
thought I was never going to be able to pronounce it right. Fortunately, it is
not used as much as it used to be as the Turkish language is changing and
the culture is slightly less formal. The word infers a sense of politeness
and inferiority for oneself and superiority for the other person. On a
similar note, I’ve noticed that many visitors who are keen to express
thanks find the words WHúHNNU HGHULP also very hard to get out of their
mouth correctly until they have practiced a few times. If they are here just
for short time they often opt to say either mersi or VD÷RO. The first is
acceptable because the French and the French language were respected by
the Ottoman Court.
Words can have different meanings and choice of words can indicate a
person’s political stance and social status. An example of this is how any
given word may mean something different to a different group of people
even within the same society. Points as such cannot always be learned in
language class but can be learned being around native speakers.
Reaching the level of language proficiency typically requires working
on these three areas:
1. Building Vocabulary: Knowing the correct words for common people,

places, or objects is typically the first step in learning how to speak a
foreign language and building on this is crucial.
198 Chapter Twenty
2. Grammar: Understanding the grammar of a foreign language includes

skills such as correctly conjugating verbs, etc. Mastering grammar rules
generally requires careful study and regular practice.
3. Comprehension: It is important to be able to communicate your own
ideas, but true language learning requires the ability to understand what
others are saying. Practicing with a native speaker of the language is best.
Regardless of which of the Silk Road languages you choose to study,

you can learn it if you apply yourself and are motivated. Travel often
causes one to be motivated to learn another language.
Another point which helps most of us learn another language is the
reward. Beyond the language barrier are rewards: wonderful, exciting
people and often financial gain. It is not just about learning another
language; it is learning about people and their ways. Our ethnocentric
tendencies, our attitudes towards other groups and our orientation regulate
or control our motivation to learn. In the words of François Grojean,
author of Bilingual: Life and Reality: “One never regrets knowing several
languages but one can certainly regret not knowing enough” (Grojean).
This is certainly true when one travels the Silk Road.
Stephen Krashen in his book Principles and Practice in Second
Language Acquisition hits the nail on the head when he writes: “What
theory implies, quite simply, is that language acquisition, first or second,
occurs when comprehension of real messages occurs, and when the
acquirer is not on the defensive” (Krashen). In order to really learn a
second language and understand the culture you need to spend time with
local people who speak that language. If you are studying Turkish spend
time with Turks. If you are studying English spend time with English
speakers and so on. By doing this you will hear, speak and observe much.
You will acquire language.
Along with traditional lessons, language acquisition is the key. It does
not require extensive use of grammatical rules. It does not require tedious
drills. Learning a second language does not happen overnight. Real
language acquisition develops slowly, and speaking skills emerge
significantly later than listening skills, even when conditions are perfect.
The two skills, the art of listening and observation, are essential in getting
the most in language acquisition. Anthropologists recognize the
importance of written language but language to the anthropologist means
the vocal communication system that every society possesses. Language is
the first of the several subsystems of culture devoted to relating people to
people. Learning the language helps in revealing the worldview in culture.
Studying the language helps the learner understand the cultural thought
and behavior better.
Knowing a foreign language breaks down barriers between cultures,

even knowing a little can make all the difference towards the attitudes of
people you meet as you travel and visit other countries. Interpretation and
meaning comes into play. For example, English speakers find that when
they study Turkish there are some words or concepts which in English can
be expressed with one or two words, whereas in Turkish it may be a few
words for the same concept. Vocabulary is developed based on what is
important and that which the people want to discuss.
The necessary ingredients for successfully teaching a second language
are creating in your students the following: a will to identify with the
second language community; the tendencies to evaluate learning situation
positively; and a desire to be a member of target language community.
I will briefly summarize in three points my thoughts on language
acquisition: first of all, language is the supreme stimulator. Secondly,
language reveals that which goes on in people’s minds as communication
takes place. Finally, language mirrors culture at every point. In conclusion,
the Silk Road continues to have its own rich history and traditions. Any of
the languages can be learned as a second language when the student is
enabled by the instructor to perceive the language as a means of
enculturation or socialization – the process of learning what is valued at
the heart of the culture. Learners of a second language (newcomers) learn
the language and culture by mirroring these values in language. The
conference on the Intellectual Silk Road: Cross Media and Cross-Cultural
Transformations functioned similarly to the travels along that historic
network by allowing people from different walks of life who were of
various nationalities and languages to come together, not only for trade but
to exchange ideas, philosophies and friendship.
200 Chapter Twenty
Works Cited
“Abduction of a Lady with her Porcelains.” The Silk Road Study Group
(2000). Web. 19 Jun. 2013.
“Daily Galaxy: Harvard Research (The).” Daily Galaxy, 18 Nov. 2010.
Web. 19 Jun. 2013.
Grojean, Francis. Bilingual: Life and Reality. Cambridge, MA, and
London: Harvard UP. 2010, Print.
Krashen, Stephen. Principles and Practice in Second Language
Acquisition. SDKrashen.com (2009). Web. 17 Jun. 2013.
McPherson, Charlotte. Culture Smart: Turkey. The Essential Guide to
Customs and Culture. London and New York: Culture Smart, 2006.
Print.
Schumann, John. “Research on the Acculturation Model for Second
Language Acquisition.” U. of California, TESL/ Applied Linguistics:
379-92. Web. 19 Jun. 2013.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAIL:

THE HIDDEN HORROR OF F. W. MURNAU’S
FAUST (1926)
LIZ JONES
Art [...] consists in eliminating, but in the cinema it would be more

correct to talk of “masking”
(Murnau, interviewed by Robert Herlth, qtd. Elsaesser 251).
From the silent era onwards, cinema has always been adept at
rendering the production process invisible; disguising or announcing its
sources, or genre, as it sees fit. When cinema began making films for
middle class audiences, it also became adept, where the genre demanded,
at hiding its roots in the popular theater and the sideshow, emphasizing
instead the “literary.” This chapter identifies Murnau’s Faust (1926) as a
film which attempts to “hide” both its (proto-) horror genre and its roots in
the popular theater, to instead announce itself as a faithful adaptation of a
classical source text (and a high cultural product).1 This piece also argues
that while the film’s hostile reception was in part an outcome of audience
fidelity to Goethe’s play(s), or the perception of Goethe’s plays; genre
expectations and the film’s perceived breach of the generic contract were
also significant factors.
By the time of its release, Faust had been heralded by its producers,
Ufa, as a film which was destined to be the first German-made
international blockbuster. Promoted as a “portfolio production” (Eisner
99), this high-budget film was to demonstrate that German cinema could
match the production standards of any Hollywood studio. Made by an
acclaimed director at the height of his powers, Faust was to represent “the
1
See Thomas Leitch’s identification of the “secret” adaptation, where the
adaptation process seeks to conceal a little-known source text (“Adaptation
Studies.”)
202 Chapter Twenty-One
large-scale deployment of all the artifice of the cinema by a man who

knows every detail of his craft” (Eisner 100). The previous critical and
commercial successes of Murnau’s Herr Tartüff [Tartuffe] (1925), and
Nosferatu (1922) would also have raised the hopes of an ailing Ufa that
this, the first German-made filmic adaptation of Faust, was to deliver the
international success the company craved.
The story of Faust, which since the middle ages had entertained,
beguiled and instructed audiences through theater, poetry, paintings,
puppet shows, medieval chap-books, operas, novels and early cinematic
shorts, was now to display its potent mix of cultural cachet and popular
appeal in a full length feature. To Murnau, it also offered a distinct
advantage: in contrast to the well-documented Nosferatu debacle,2 Faust
would allow Murnau to enjoy his copyright-free cake and eat it. With no
legal rights to negotiate, the film could derive the dual benefit of the
story’s high literary associations along with its inherent horror (which had
long been a central focus of Faustian productions in the popular theater
and, later, the early cinema.) The visual box of tricks: the smoke and
mirrors and trapdoors were central to (and fully expected of) any popular
theatrical production of Faust. Later, these productions were to become a
transmedial gift to filmmakers, offering a blueprint for experimentation
with the new technology, a loose narrative structure which could be
embellished with experimental cinematic effects both sensational and
sensationalist. From the earliest days of film, its source-texts were gleaned
more from theatrical performances of popular literary tales than from the
printed textual versions. As a result:
[T]he theatricality of early films, derives from many influences, including

the combination of realism and melodrama found on nineteenth-century
stages, the historical dominance of popular theater traditions such as music
halls and vaudeville performances, and, perhaps most important, the
necessarily stationary position of the camera that could most easily recreate
the perspective of a spectator in a center seat before the stage (Corrigan
13).
To view these early celluloid records of mass entertainment’s shift

from stage to screen is, in effect, to witness the passing of the baton from
the (popular) stage to (mass spectator) screen; the replacement of the
2
As Christopher Frayling comments, there are many different versions of the story
of the Nosferatu adaptation and the legal battles that surrounded it. The version he
favours is that Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence, had heard of the film’s premier and
got in touch with the Society of Authors, claiming £5 million rights from the film,
culminating in the court ruling that all copies of the film be destroyed (Nosferatu).
The Devil’s in the Detail: The Hidden Horror of Faust 203
spectacle of popular theater with the mesmerizing visual effects of the new
medium of film. By 1926, Faust had already enjoyed over a quarter
century of an extremely fruitful relationship with the still-emergent
medium of film. From the Edison commissioned one reel spectacle of
magic in Faust and Marguerite (Porter 1900), to the two dozen (at least)
filmic Fausts, made in five different countries by 1913 alone, Faust and
film seemed made for each other. Early filmmakers (and the many others
who followed, Murnau included) would have been drawn to the legend’s
enormous adaptive potential; and the combination of the grotesque and
occult, with high cultural associations and the reassurance of a moral
message. No wonder then that Faust in film crosses nations and decades,
in films such as (to name just a few random examples) Marxist fable
Alloimono Stous Neous [God Help the Youth of Today] (Greece 1961), as
Svankmajer’s surrealist, metafilmic Faust (Czech Republic 1994), dark
political satire Mephisto (Germany 1981), or teen angst comedy, I Was A
Teenage Faust (US 2002). As Inez Hedges comments, Faust influenced the
development of cinema itself:
The presence of Faust in so many early films predisposed the development

of film as a narrative, an evolution that facilitated the growing role that the
medium came to play in the public sphere. (Hedges 10)
It may not be overly fanciful to suggest that the Faust story itself could
be viewed as a metaphor for film, a shape-shifting text, adopting different
forms and guises; beguiling in its charm and hypnotizing with its
narratives of wealth, success, eternal youth and sexual desirability; so
offering us – for the price of a ticket – a contract involving temporary
respite from the constraints of society and anxieties over our mortality.
Despite its many different manifestations, reworkings and reshapings
in various media; despite the striking varieties in terms of genre, setting, or
tone, each Faustian adaptation shares and is partly constructed by the
common assumption of spectator familiarity with the Faust legend itself.
Although interpretations by various writers, Marlowe and Goethe in
particular, may have led to its perception as a literary text, Faust (as the
early filmmakers were quick to realize) lies deep in the storytelling
tradition; an ur-text, “which stands outside and before each retelling of the
story” (Cardwell 26); belonging to that body of texts including myth,
fairy-tale or folklore, which, as Sanders puts it, “by their very nature
depend on a communality of understanding” (45). It might also be
assumed that the spectator can approach the film with a certain degree of
flexibility and open-mindedness. A filmic adaptation of Faust, for
example, may not invoke strong feelings of fidelity as would an adaptation
of a well-loved novel; be it a Jane Austen or a J. K. Rowling. Faust can

also serve “to legitimize film as commercialized bourgeois entertainment”
(Hedges 14). At the same time, it can draw and build on the spectator
familiarity which comes with the story. Faust functions as a well-loved and
well-known ur-text which enjoys high cultural associations.
In Murnau’s Faust, the “communality of understanding” is clearly
marked. “Eine Deutsche Volkssage [A German Folktale]” states the
opening intertitle, in nostalgic, Gothic-style text; so marking its
provenance along with an assumed collective familiarity with the story.
Although Goethe is not credited in either the film’s intertitles or publicity
material, Murnau’s Faust (and its inevitable associations with Germany’s
national poem) cannot help but remain, to use Christine Geraghty’s term, a
“ghostly presence” (99). Faust’s “German-ness,” too, is a key ingredient;
the half-timbered houses, steep cobbled streets in crooked townscapes, of
mountain ranges and valleys, deep forests and waterfalls, presented a
medieval German Gothic (and a tourist Germany) to the world. The film’s
marked “painterly style” with its “Rembrandt lighting” (created by the
ILOP¶VGHVLJQHUV5REHUW+HUOWKDQG:DOWHU5|KULJZDVGUDZQIURPZRUNV
such as Albrecht Altdorfer’s paintings of medieval villages and landscapes
and (perhaps inevitably) Rembrandt’s Faust woodcut (Elsaesser 241-2).
Murnau, however, had created more than just a cultural pageant; alongside
the images of German Romantic longing, his state-of-the-art special
effects were also to be showcased to the world, along with a mise-en-scène
which draws on the set designs and experimental lighting techniques of the
contemporary German theater. Indeed, as a resilient, robust and highly
adaptable ur-text--which enjoys a rich relationship within the popular
theater and later, the cinema--the study of this film (and, indeed, Faust on
film in general) can also be a useful prism through which to re-view the
misconception that stage to screen adaptation is a limited process,
producing films which never fully leave the stage, which Bazin calls
“filmed plays” and Hitchcock dismisses as “photographs of people
talking” (qtd. Sinyard 157). Murnau’s Faust then is perhaps most
productively viewed as a melding of ur-text and stage-to-screen adaption.
The film’s manipulation of space and light, the theatrical-style effects, all
serve to reveal the director’s roots in the stage and his earlier association
with Max Reinhardt in particular.3 As with Reinhardt, Murnau was
concerned with free and often stylized adaptations of popular stories,
involving combinations of spectacle and technical experimentation. The
3
In common with a number of leading directors, actors and technicians of the
silent German cinema (Wegener, Theodor Loos, Conrad Veidt, Emil Jannings),
Murnau had trained with Max Reinhardt’s Deutsches Theater Company.
film’s script, reworked by Hans Kyser from Gerhart Hauptmann’s earlier

drafts, is peopled with stock characters and laced with a broad humor that
would not have been out of place on the German popular theater;
involving as it does a beautiful and innocent heroine (Gretchen, played by
Camilla Horn) and the gurning-faced, rolling-eyed villain who takes an
obvious delight in his evil deeds (Mephistopheles, played by Emil
Jannings).
Yet it also affects something more. In its cinematographic assuredness
and inventiveness; the sculptural use of light and his melding of
expressionism and medievalism, Murnau’s innovation marks the
expansion of film’s role from novelty to art form; blending sensationalist
novelty with high art in much the same way as Goethe’s innovations blend
the classical with the Romantic; the grotesque with the metaphysical. The
expressionist techniques, the chiaroscuro and shadow, employed with such
resonant effect in Nosferatu, is used again in Faust, only now they shift
away from the visceral and immediate, into the realm of the “artificial
picturesque” (Eisner 102). In the hands of a technical innovator like
Murnau, Faust not only leaves the stage, but soars above it. Murnau’s
experiments with form and narrative can be seen (for instance) in the
scene, which presents the magic carpet-OLNHIOLJKWRI)DXVW*|VWD(NPDQ
and Mephistopheles (Emil Jannings) to the palace of the Duchess of Parma
(Hanna Ralph), where the director creates a filmic realization of flight,
involving the innovative use of a mobile “unchained camera” (Eisner
216).4 As with Méliès, Edison and the other early Faustian adaptations,
Murnau treated the story as a vehicle for displaying the latest technical
effects of a medium which was developing its own aesthetics and narrative
structure. Despite this technical inventiveness, Murnau’s Faust is, in most
respects, a conservative project, containing as it does “an inbuilt tension
between the modern and the medieval” (Kreimeier 129). With its emphasis
on the “Gothicizing of the German” (Kreimeier 220) Faust presents a
glorious golden age, a partial retreat from the modernist aesthetic (and, by
implication, a respite from the turbulent political and economic life of the
Weimar Republic). As Peter Gay observes, Ufa “revealed themselves as
symptomatic of massive regression arising from a great fear; the fear of
modernity” (qtd. in Kreimeier 108).
While the formative medium of film began life as a shadowy sideshow
novelty, by the mid-Twenties it had gained a wider appeal and a higher
status, involving middle class audiences who (as became evident), did not
4
These special effects were also achieved by Murnau’s innovative use of the
traveling-matte optical printing technique, which (as can be clearly observed by
any casual viewer) involves a landscape made of small scale models.
tend to associate Faust with popular entertainment in the way a working

class audience might have done. To these new audiences, Faust signals a
refined entertainment, appealing to filmgoers of higher artistic
sensibilities. In Germany in particular, Faust would have been inextricably
linked with Goethe. In this respect, Murnau’s referencing the folktale,
rather than the Goethe text, in the film’s opening credits, appears to be
anticipating this expectation, while failing to allay it. In Ufa’s desire to
impress an international market, it had sought to capitalize on the cultural
cachet of the Goethe source text. Even those spectators who may not have
had more than a passing acquaintance with Goethe, would still have
bought their tickets (especially in the light of Ufa’s publicity) expecting to
see something approaching the literary on film.
Despite Ufa’s securing of a panegyric review in leading German film
journal Der Kinematograph (which it then controlled), enthusing over the
film’s superb photography, excellent architecture and truly brilliant casting
(qtd. in Kreimier 119), the film was ultimately to receive a hostile
reception, with critics objecting to Murnau’s perceived infidelity to Goethe
and the literary. Those German critics who were not on Ufa’s payroll
expressed contempt for the film’s sentimentalism, dismissing it as a
“kitsch travesty” of the classic text of German literature (qtd. Kreimier
220). In America, the National Board of Review magazine complainedthat
“the metaphysical conflict between good and evil is thoroughly
vulgarized” (qtd. Kreimier 119). This generally unfavorable reception may
also in part be viewed as the outcome of fundamentally differing
perceptions of the function of film as a medium and the associated
changes a text makes when transposed from one medium to another (a
perception which even today continues to stalk adaptation criticism – even
if only in the seemingly ritualistic necessity of its denial).5 As Elsaesser
observes:
[T]he critics seemed to be looking for content and denounced the form,
while the film industry was interested in form, taking the content primarily
as a way of showing off the form (244).
In their positioning of Goethe’s dramatic poem as a text to be

preserved and afforded reverential treatment, the reviewers had not viewed
Murnau’s (or indeed, Goethe’s) Faust as a reworking of a pliable, shifting
and infinitely adaptable ur-text.
5
Leitch, for example comments: “adaptation theorists from George Bluestone to
Brian McFarlane alternate between generalizing about what a bad thing fidelity
discourse is and turning around and doing it themselves” (“Fidelity” 205).
There is another factor, too, which transcends fidelity to the source-text

(or that which was perceived as the source-text). Faust’s poor reception
also appears to be rooted in filmgoers’ (and critics’) feelings of having
been misled in terms of the generic contract. As Sarah Berry-Flint
comments, “genres function as tools for predicting and regulating the
reception of texts” (40), while Steve Neale believes that the process of
genre labeling signals to the spectator a set of conventions to which the
film subscribes and so offers a certain degree of predictability (7). If the
spectator has knowingly gone along to see a horror film for example, he or
she may, quite reasonably, expect to experience feelings of fear and
revulsion invoked through the terrifying spectacle of the protagonist’s life
and death struggle against a monster (or monsters). Similarly, if a spectator
buys a cinema ticket with Goethe in mind, he or she would have some
with certain expectations of a metaphysical debate of the age-old
Manichean struggle between good and evil. What Murnau gave them was
a mixture of horror and sentiment (including the happy ending which Ufa
demanded). While horror and melodrama have, of course, always formed
part of middle class entertainment, these are generally disguised by the
passage of time and the elevation of a text’s status.
This generic contract can be said to contain an important clause: the
text must be consistent to the conventions of the genre in which it
operates. If, as practice-based critic Neill Hicks observes, this consistency
is broken, audience trust may be lost (8-9).6 Robert McKee comments:
[H]aving told our filmgoers to expect a favorite form, we must deliver as

promised. If we botch genre by omitting or misusing conventions, the
audience knows instantly and badmouths our work (90).
Unlike Nosferatu (a more expressionistic, lower budget production),

Ufa, as we have seen, did not promote Faust as a horror film, as to have
done so would have been to undermine its promotion as a high culture
commodity; a blockbuster and (proto) heritage film. Yet Faust shares with
Nosferatu many of the characteristics that were later to evolve into the
conventions of the Hollywood horror. To view the contemporary horror
film, for instance, as “a direct outgrowth of generations of folklore, fairy
tales, and pagan mythologies” (Hicks 128), there are few stories more
linked to folklore than that of Faust. Murnau’s Faust also markedly
6
I apply the term “practice based critic” to denote writers of practical
screenwriting and other manuals (and who engage with “hidden” theory), as
distinct from the “theoretical critic,” who is concerned with theory per se.
conforms to Hicks’ taxonomy of horror film conventions, involving as it

does:
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his human victims;
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onto the world;
$PRQVWHUZKRLVHPSRZHUHGE\DVXSHUQDWXUDO6DWDQLFOHJDF\+LFNV
29, 132).
Following Nosferatu, Murnau had gained a reputation as “one of the

foremost purveyors of the macabre and fantastic” (Dixon 17). When it
came to Faust, claims Dixon, the director had outdone himself. Even so,
as with other Faust adaptations (Goethe’s included) Murnau’s Faust does
not function as a (proto) horror alone, any more than it functions as an
adaptation of a classic text, but instead invokes a variety of intertextual
references; including, as we have seen, the works of Rembrandt and
Altdorfer, Expressionism, the German popular theater and the theater of
Reinhardt, as well as the early filmic experiments of Méliès and Edison,
with almost any number of previous incarnations of the Faustian ur-text
thrown in the mix. Despite the horror and sensationalism, Murnau’s Faust
echoes in part the Manichean elements of Goethe’s play, while in its
actualization (consisting in turn of spectacle, melodrama and broad
humor), it is closer still to Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and to the chapbook.
Horror or morality tale; high art or novelty, Murnau, like other
filmmakers of his generation, was creating a new set of aesthetics and
narrative structures for the still-evolving form of the full-length feature
film; as such, he was not overly concerned with those labels which
belonged to other media. Yet as Murnau and Ufa were to discover, critics
and audiences were unwilling to accept a film which experimented with
their fidelity towards those genres which had been carefully cultivated
through a middle class education. Although contemporary audiences
demonstrate a greater openness with regard to genre expectations, even
today, those films which break the rules of genre can hit against a wall of
critical intransigence. (Take, for example, the mixed reception to Ridley
Scott’s Prometheus (2012)).7 While a film may tamper with the ‘small
7
See, for example, Peter Bradshaw’s review in The Guardian, which is constructed
around an unfavorable comparison with Alien (and, by implication, the science
fiction film genre as a whole). Bradshaw states, for example: “In place of
unforgettable shocks there are reminders of the original's unforgettable shocks”
(“Prometheus.”)
print’, tearing up the generic contract remains a risky and unpredictable

business.
Works Cited
Alien. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt.
Twentieth Century-Fox, 1979. Film.
Alloimono Stous Neous [God Help the Youth of Today]. Dir. A.
Sakellarios. Perf. Dimitris Horn, Maro Kodou. Alfa Studios, 1961.
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Altman, Rick. Film/Genre. London: BFI, 2000. Print.
Balázs, Béla. Early Film Theory: Visible Man and The Spirit of Film.
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Bazin, André. “Theater and Cinema.” Trans. Hugh Gray. 1967. Film and
Literature: An Introduction and Reader. Ed. Tim Corrigan. 2nd ed.
New York and London: Routledge, 2011. 223-31. Print.
Berry-Flint, Sarah, “Genre.” A Companion to Film Theory. Eds. Toby
Miller and Robert Stam. Malden, VA and Oxford: Blackwell
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Bradshaw, Peter, “Prometheus.” Guardian.co.uk. 30 May 2012. Web. 28
Apr. 2013.
Brewster, Ben and Lea Jacobs. Theater to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and
the Early Feature Film. Oxford: Oxford UP. 1997. Print.
Butler, Eliza M. The Fortunes of Faust. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1979.
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Cardwell, Sarah. Adaptation Revisited. Manchester: Manchester UP. 2002.
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Dixon, Wheeler Winston. A History of Horror. New Brunswick, Rutgers
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Duff, David, ed. Modern Genre Theory. Harlow: Longman, 2000. Print.
Eisner, Lotte H. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German
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Greaves. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 2008. Print.
Elsaesser, Thomas. Weimar Cinema and After: Germany’s Historical
Imaginary. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Faust [Lesson Faust]. Dir. J. Svankmajer. Perf. Petr Cepek, Jan Kraus.
Athanor / BBC, 1994. Film.
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Méliès. Georges Méliès/ Star Film, 1903. Film.
Faust – Eine Deutsche Volkssage. Dir. F. W. Murnau. Perf. *|VWD(NPDQ
Emil Jannings. UFA, 1926. Film.
Faust and Marguerite. Dir. E. S. Porter. Edison Manufacturing Company,
1900. Film.
Frayling, Christopher, Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horrors. F. W. Murnau

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Literature and Drama. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.
Print.
Goethe, J.W. von. Faust I and II. 1819. Trans. Stuart Atkins. Princeton:
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Hedges, Inez. Framing Faust: Twentieth Century Cultural Struggles.
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Herr Tartüff [Tartuffe]. Dir. F. W. Murnau. Perf. Lil Dagover, Emil
Jannings. UFA, 1925. Film.
Hicks, Neil D. Writing the Thriller Film: The Terror Within. Studio City,
CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2002. Print.
I Was A Teenage Faust. Dir. Thom E. Eberhardt. Perf. Morgan Fairchild,
Robert Townsend. Terra Bella Entertainment, 2002. Film.
Jones, Darryl. Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film. New York:
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Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of
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Kreimier, Klaus. The Ufa Story: A History of Germany’s Greatest Film
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California P. 1999. Print.
Langford, Barry. Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond. Edinburgh:
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Leitch, Thomas. “Adaptation Studies at the Crossroads.” Adaptation 1.1
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—. “Fidelity Discourse: Its Cause and Cure.” (In)Fidelity: Essays on Film
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Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. 205-208. Print.
Manvell, Roger. Masterworks of the German Cinema. New York: Harper
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Marlowe, Christopher. Dr. Faustus and Other Plays. Oxford: Oxford UP.
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McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of
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Mephisto. Dir. István Szabó. Perf. Klaus Maria Brandauer, Krysyna Janda.
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Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens [Nosferatu, A Symphony of

Horrors]. Dir. F.W. Murnau. Perf. Max Schreck, Gustav von
Wangenheim. Jofa-Atelier Berlin-Johannisthal, 1922. Film.
Prometheus. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace,
Charlize Theron. Twentieth Century Fox, 2012. Film.
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Sinan AKILLI is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English

Language and Literature, Hacettepe University, Turkey. His publications
and current research focuses on early modern English popular culture and
literature, nineteenth century travel literature, postcolonial theory, East-
West cultural encounters and adaptation studies.
Peter E.S. BABIAK currently teaches literature, film, cultural studies

and composition. He has been a regular presenter at the annual National
Conference of the U.S. Popular Culture Association since 2004, and has
been involved in the ongoing creation of an online database of street
theater since 2003. Dr. Babiak has published several articles in CineAction
Magazine and in books in the area of film and film adaptation studies, and
is currently completing a book-length study of adaptations of
Shakespeare's plays on film.
Holding BA, MA, and PhD degrees in English language and literature,
Mustafa BAL is currently an assistant professor and the chairman of the
department of English language and literature at the TOBB University of
Economics and Technology, Ankara. He specializes in contemporary
British theater and is interested in theater theory, comparative literary and
cultural studies that cover subjects on British and Turkish (inclusive of
Ottoman and Balkan backgrounds) literatures and cultures. Dr. Bal is also
the editor-in-chief of The Human journal (www.humanjournal.org).
Marilise Rezende BERTIN is an English teacher and translator and has

a master degree on English literature. She is a PhD student from the
University of São Paulo (USP), Brasil. She is specialized on Shakespeare
and Shakespearean adaptations. She wrote three bilingual adaptations
(Portuguese and English) of William Shakespeare in play text to Disal
Publishing Company. Hamlet (2005), Romeo and Juliet / Romeu e Julieta
(2006), Othello / Otelo (2008). She also wrote O mercador de Veneza in
Portuguese narrative text (Scipione, 2010). She is now a researcher in the
area of the translation and adaptation of the Lambs’ work into Brazilian
Portuguese.
214 List of Contributors
Victoria BLEDSLOE recently graduated from the University of

Augsburg with State Exams in Education, History and German. She
enrolled in the Elite Study Program Ethics of Textual Cultures at the same
university and graduated with a Master Degree. She received a scholarship
from the National Student Foundation of Germany and was a member of
the Élite Study Network of Bavaria.
João Anzanello CARRASCOZA is a Doctor in Communication

Sciences from the School of Communication and Arts of the University of
São Paulo and professor in the postgraduate program in Communication
and Consumption Practices of the College of Advertising and Marketing
of São Paulo.
Rahime ÇOKAY was born in Gaziantep in 1989. She received her B.A.
in English Philology from Gaziantep University. She is an MA student in
the same field at Ankara University and a research assistant at Gazi
University, Ankara. Her major research interests are postmodernism,
postmodern fiction, postmodern history writing, rewriting, cultural studies,
literary and critical theory.
Selga GOLDMANE is currently working as a lecturer of English for

Business and Public Relations in Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences,
Latvia. She also teaches text analysis in translation studies. Her research
interests include semiotic comparison of literature and film, translation,
text analysis as well as food and culture in film.
Joyce GOGGIN is a senior lecturer in literature at the University of

Amsterdam, where she also teaches film and media. She has published
widely on gambling and finance in literature, painting, film, TV, and
computer games. She is currently researching and writing on casino
culture, Las Vegasization and public debt, gamification and the
entertainment industries.
(ODøSHN*h1'h=was born in 1978 in Gaziantep and graduated from

'RNX](\OO8QLYHUVLW\)DFXOW\RI6FLHQFHDQG/HWWHUV$PHULFDQ&XOWXUH
and Literature Department in ø]PLU LQ She completed her master’s
degree at Ankara University, English Language and Literature Department
in 2004. She has been working as a research assistant at Gaziantep
University, English Language and Literature Department for ten years.
CurrHQWO\VKHLVFRPSOHWLQJKHUGLVVHUWDWLRQDW$WÕOÕP8QLYHUVLW\$QNDUD
on neo-Victorian novels.
The Silk Road of Adaptation 215
Charles HAMILTON is Professor of English at Northeast Texas

Community College in Mount Pleasant, Texas, where he teaches
composition, literature, and film studies courses. He is the area film chair
for adaptation with the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association,
and has presented papers at a variety of film-related conferences.
Tânia HOFF. PhD from the University of São Paulo – USP and
Professor of the Postgraduate Course of Communication and Consumption
Practices, of the Superior School of Advertising and Marketing (ESPM –
São Paulo, Brazil).
6HoLO+25$6$1JRWKHU%$DW%DúNHQW8QLYHUVLW\(QJOLVK/DQJXDJH
Teaching Department with the highest rank and is about to complete her
MA at Middle East Technical University, Ankara. She is currently working
at Gazi University School of Foreign Languages as an English instructor.
Her research interests focus on drama in language classrooms, second
language acquisition, and teacher education.
Wu HUI, professor, teaches in the Television and Journalism College,

Communication University of China. Her main published works are TV
Drama Sociology (collaboration㸧, Shakespeare Images: Literature on
Screen; “Adaptation: A Strategy of CulturalIndustry,” “The First Hundred
Years: The Spread of Shakespeare in China,” and “To Seek Revenge or to
Forgive: Two Chinese films about Hamlet.”
Liz JONES has recently successfully completed her PhD thesis on

stage to screen adaptation at the University of South Wales (formerly the
University of Glamorgan.) She is a lifelong learning humanities
coordinator and writing for theater lecturer at Aberystwyth University,
Wales, UK. She also edits the reviews section of the Journal of Adaptation
in Film and Performance.
Faruk KALAY is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign

/DQJXDJH 7HDFKLQJ 0Xú $OSDUVODQ 8QLYHUVLW\ +H LV LQWHUHVWHG LQ SRVW-
colonial literature. He has also some publications and presentations on
American Jewish Writers, such as Nabokov, Bellow and Roth.
CHARLOTTE McPHERSON is an American with dual citizenship

who has lived in Turkey since 1979. For her graduate studies at Indiana
University she specialized in Uralic Altaic languages and history. She has
an MA in Anthropology, and during the 1980s she conducted extensive
research in Turkey and Central Asia among Turkic-speaking peoples. She
216 List of Contributors
has lectured in Social Anthropology at Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul,

and has written many scholarly papers and several books. She also writes
as a regular columnist for Today’s Zaman, a popular English newspaper.
Heather SCHELL is an Assistant Professor at the George Washington

University in Washington, DC, where she teaches courses on academic
writing and American popular culture. This essay is a piece of her current
book project, which explores translator and reader responses to Harlequin
romances in Turkey.
%OHQW&7$15,7$1,5LVDQ$VVLVWDQW3URIHVVRULQWKH'HSDUWPHQWRI
(QJOLVK/DQJXDJHDQG/LWHUDWXUHLQ<X]XQFX<ÕO8QLYHUVLty, Van, Turkey.
He deals with feminist American writers. He has many publications and
presentations on feminism American literature.
Defne Ersin TUTAN teaches in the Department of American Culture

DQG /LWHUDWXUH DW %DúNHQW 8QLYHUVLW\$QNDUD7XUNH\ +DYing earned her
M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the field of Cultural Studies from Hacettepe
University, she worked extensively on the intersection of postmodern and
postcolonial discourses, with her dissertation titled “Postmodern
Fabulation in the Postcolonial Novels of Salman Rushdie and Ben Okri.”
She currently teaches courses on American history and culture, as well as
on semiotics and cultural criticism, while her research interests focus on
the construction of alternative histories through adaptation. Her most
recent publication is a co-edited volume, with Laurence Raw, titled
Adaptation of History: Essays on Ways of Telling the Past, published by
McFarland in early 2013.
Himmet UMUNÇ is the Chair of the Department of American Culture

and Literature, and heaG RI WKH 6FKRRO RI (QJOLVK /DQJXDJH DW %DúNHQW
University, Ankara. He received his full professorship in 1987, during a
forty-year career at the Department of English Language and Literature at
Hacettepe University, Ankara. His research interests include British
studies, American studies, representation of Turkey in British and
American writing, literary theory and criticism, cultural studies, and
comparative literature.
A certified translator, HUGO VANDAL-SIROIS is working in the field

of advertising and marketing. He adapted many campaigns (Web, print,
TV and radio spots) for major clients worldwide to the French market of
Québec. He writes and gives lectures about the challenges of adapting
advertising and promotional communications, and is currently pursuing a
Ph.D. in Translation Studies at Université de Montréal, where he teaches

writing techniques and adaptation at the Département de linguistique et
traduction.
Imelda WHELEHAN is Research Professor at the University of

Tasmania. She is co-editor of the journal Adaptation, co-author of Screen
Adaptation (2010) and has written widely on adaptation studies and
feminism. She is currently working on adaptation and identity, and
narratives of ageing in popular culture.
INDEX
(Entries in bold refer to specific chapters)
Advertising 140-150, 152-158 Boyum, Joy Gould 22

$NÕOOÕ6LQDQ35-48 %R]NÕU0RVXW-7
Alloimono Stous Neous (1961) 203 Bradshaw, Peter 208 n.7
Almereyda, Michael 113 Branagh, Kenneth 113
Altdorfer, Albrecht 204 Brauer, Gerd 180
Anadolu Külübü (Anatolian Club) 7 Bridges, James 79, 84
Anderson, Benedict 39-41 Brisset, Annie 141
Andrew, Dudley 20, 90 Brook, Peter 9, 122-126, 130
Andric, Ivo 172-173 Brooke, Arthur 133
The Arabian Nights 49, 51 Buchanan, Judith 4
Association of Adaptation Studies Buhler, Stephen M. 124, 128-129
(AAS) 7 Bujie, Duo 114
$WDWUN0XVWDID.HPDO Burgess, Anthony 90
Aurelius, Marcus 27 Burnaby, Frederick 37
Austen, Jane 3, 204 Byron, Catherine 52 n.5
Byron, Lord 8, 48-55
Babiak, Peter E. S. 9, 122-131
Bajia, Pu 114 Caan, James 8, 67, 72
Bakhtin, Mikhail 66 Cajado, Octavio Mendes 137-138
Bal, Mustafa 10, 172-179 Campos, Paulo Mendes 135
Bandello, Matteo 132 Cannon, John and Ralph Griffiths
Banerjee, Mita 103 41
The Banquet (2006) 113-118 Cardwell, Sarah 16
Barthes, Roland 65 n.2 Carpini, Johannes de Plano 27, 29-
Bastin, Georges 134, 144 33
Bataille, George 74 n.12 Carrascoza, João Anzanello 9, 152-
Baydar, Kutluay 39 159
Bazin, André 64, 204 Cartmell, Deborah 16, 18
Benjamin, Walter 91 Cattryse, Patrick 90-91
Berry-Flint, Sarah 207 Cerulo, Karen A. 41, 43, 45-46
Bertin, Marilise R. 9, 132-139 Charlemagne 191
Blake, Robert O. jr. 2 Chatterjee, Kumkum and Clement
Bledsloe, Victoria 8, 26-34 Hawes 36
Bluestone, George 16, 206 n.5 Clinton, Hillary Roddam 1
Bogdanor, Vernon 41 Cobb, Shelley 5
Bohn, Emil 39 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 176
Bond, James 155-157 Collick, John 126, 127-129
Bortolotti, Gary 22 Conrad, Joseph 55
Connor, J. D. 21 Emig, Rainer, and Pascal Nicklas

Cornwell, Charlotte 80 20-21
Corrigan, Timothy 18, 89 Engel, Susan 124
Cunningham, Michael 98-101 (NPDQ*|VWD
Cusack, Cyril 126
Fahey, Jeff 78
Çelebi, Evliya 172-173 Faust (1994) 203
Çetin, Sinan 4 Faust and Marguerite (1900) 203
.RPVHUùHNúSLU (2001) 4 Faymonville, Carmen 104
Çitak 182 Fetih 1453 (2012) 38
Çokay, Rahime 9, 98-102 Fidelity 15-17, 20-22, 64-66, 79, 83,
89-91, 98, 203-206
Daldry, Stephen 9, 99, 100-101 Fleming, Mike 180
The Hours (2002) 9, 98-101 Fleming, Tom 124
Dalrymple, William 36 Foote, John 82
Da Porto, Luigi 132 Franci, Giovanna 53
Darley, Andrew 75 n.13 Frayling, Christopher 202 n.2
Dayton Agreement 173-174
De Belleforest, François 132 Ga, Suo Lang Zhu 116
DeBona, Guerric 18-20 Gabold, Anne-Lise 124
De Kay, James Ellsworth 38-39 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 26, 32-33,
De Lunay, Pierre Boisteau 132 65-66
'HPLUFLR÷OXùHULIH Gambier, Yves 141
De Rothyn, Lord Grey 52 n.5 Gaucho, Ronaldinho 156
Di Salerno, Masuccio 132 Gay, Peter 205
Dewey, John 180-181 Gedik, Arda 161-162, 169
Donizetti, Giuseppe 39 Genette, Gérard 67
Don Quixote 22, 51 Geraghty, Christine 16, 204
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Ilyich 8, 66- Globalization 142-147
67, 69 71, 73, 75 Goede, Marieke de 72 n.9
Dougill, John 182 Goethe, J-W 10, 201, 204, 206-207
Dracup, Mary 183-184, 185 Goggin, Joyce 8-9, 64-77
Dumas, Alexandre 110 Goldmane, Selga 9, 88-97
Duvall, Shelley 92 Gonzalves, Rob 79
Dzundza, George 80 Greenblatt, Stephen 19-20, 50
Grojean, François 198
Eastwood, Clint 8-9, 78-85 Guidère, Mathieu 148
White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) *QG](ODøSHk 9, 98-102
78-85
Ebert, Roger 84 Hamilton, Charles 8-9, 78-87
Edison, Thomas 205, 208 Harada, Mieko 129
Eisler, Benita 51 n.3 Harlequin Romances 9-10, 160-169
Elliott, Kamilla 64 Hauptmann, Gerhart 205
Elsaesser, Thomas 206 Haydn, Joseph 41
Elstar, John 69 n.7 Hedges, Inez 203
Helper, Hinton R. 74
220 Index
+HUOWK5REHUWDQG:DOWHU5|KULJ Khan, Genghis 28

204 Kidman, Nicole 99
Hicks, Neill 207 King, Stephen 88-95
Hitchcock, Alfred 204 Kipling, Rudyard 8, 55
Hogg, Ian 124 Klein, Richard 68 n.6
Hoff, Tânia 9, 152-159 Knolles, Richard 51
Holland, Peter 125 Kolstø, Pål 40
Hopton, Tricia et. al. 21 Kott, Jan 122-123
Horasan, Seçil 10, 180-188 Kozintsev, Grigori 113
Horn, Camilla 205 .|\OR÷OX1LKDO
Hughes, Mary Joe 100-101 Krashen, Stephen 198
Huntington, Samuel 36 Krämer, Lucia 15-16, 21
Huston, John 8-9, 78-81, 83-85 Kristeva, Julia 15
The African Queen (1951) 8, 78- Kubrick, Stanley 88-95, 128
84 Barry Lyndon (1975) 90, 92, 94
Annie (1982) 84 A Clockwork Orange (1972) 90
The Bible (1966) 84 The Shining (1980) 90, 91-94
Hutcheon, Linda 16, 22, 59-60, 64 Kurosawa, Akira 9, 123, 126-30
n.1, 79 .KQHO+DUU\-31
Hutton, Lauren 69, 74 n.11 Kyser, Hans 205
I Was a Teenage Faust (2002) 203 Lamb, Charles and Mary 9, 132-138
Igawa, Hisashi 129 Tales from Shakespeare (1809) 9,
øQDQ6H]LQ 111, 132-38
Inderdisciplinarity 21-22, 172-178 Landry, Donna 36-37
Innozenz IV, Pope 29 Lawrence, D. H. 73
Intermediality 16, 19-20, 155-157 Lefevere, André 160, 168
Irwin, Robert 8, 57-62 Leite, Januário 134
Arabian Nightmare (1983) 8, 57- Leitch, Thomas 14-17, 21, 79, 206
62 n.5, 201 n.1
Lewis, Bernard 36
Jakobson, Roman 90 Lloyd, Danny 92
James, Henry 3-5 Lloyd, Robert 124
Jameson, Fredric 5, 22, 119 Loyolla, Isis, and Martins, Flávio
Jannings, Emil 204 n.3, 205 136-137
Ji, Zong 114 Lyng, Stephen 68 n.6
Jones, Liz 10, 201-212
Jump, Shirley 160, 163-165, 167 MacGowran, Jack 124
Back to Mr. and Mrs. (aka Maclean, Gerald 35-36
Bir ùDQV'DKD) 160-168 Madden, John 4
Shakespeare in Love (1998) 4
Kalay, Faruk 9, 103-109 Mainar, Luis Miguel Garcia 81-82,
Kavanagh, Thomas 68 n.5, 70 n.8 84
Kennedy, Burt 79, 84 Mandelbaum, Joshua 2
Kennedy, Dennis 123 Mantle, Clive 81
Kermode, Frank 122 Marlowe, Christopher 203, 208
Martin, Mel 81 Ottoman Empire 7-8, 35-46, 51-54

McCann, Jerome J. 51 n.2 Ouejian, Naji B. 50, 52
McClone, Melissa 162
McFarlane, Brian 89, 206 n.5 Paksoy, Esra 181-182
McKee, Robert 207 Pasha, Ali 54 n.11
McPherson, Charlotte 10, 189-200 Pavis, Patrice 5
Melo-Thaiss, Janet 129 Pedagogy 180-186
0HQJ+DQGH,úÕO Péninou, George 152
Mephisto (1981) 203 Phillips, Thomas 54
Metz, Christian 91, 94 Pollack, Michel 153-154
Méliès, Georges 205, 208 Polo, Marco 29
Mill, John Stuart 176 Prince of the Himalayas (2006)
Miyazaki, Yoshiko 126 113-118
Mont, Juliet du 181 Puri. Jyoti 166 n.3
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley 51 Pyatt, Geoffrey 1
Moore, Julianne 99-100
Moore, Thomas 49 Quillard, Geneviève 146
Mukherjee, Bharati 9, 103-107 Quintana, Mario 136-137
Jasmine (1989) 9, 103-107
Muller, Herta 158 Raizis, Marius Byron 51
Mulvey, Laura 22-23 Rajewsky, Irina 19
Murnau, F. W. 10, 201-209 Ralph, Hanna 205
Faust (1926) 10, 201-209 Ramos, Péricles Eugênio da Silva
Herr Tartüff (1925) 202 137
Nosferatu (1922) 202, 205, 207- Ray, Robert B. 64
208 Raw, Laurence 1-13
Murray, Kathleen 20 Reisz, Karel 8, 64-75
0QNOHU0DULQD-30, 32 The Gambler (1974) 8, 64-75
Reinhardt, Max 204
Nakadai, Tatsuya 127 Reith, Gerda 69 n.7, 70-71, 74 n.12
Naremore, James 22-23, 90 Richthofen, Ferdinand von 27
Neale, Steve 207 Ricoeur, Paul 66 n.3
Nelson, Barry 94 Roberts, David 57-58
New Criticism 4-5 Rowling. J. K. 204
Nezu, Jinpachi 127 5\ǌ'DLVXNH
Nixon, Richard 72-73
Nonura, Takeshi 126 Said, Edward 61
St. André, James 142
Odorico of Pordenone 27, 29-33 Sanders, Julie 16-17, 79, 83, 203
Olivier, Laurence 113 Santoro, P. J. 91
O’Neal, Ryan 93 Sarangi, Jaydeep 103
Orientalism 48-55, 57-62, 157, 165 Schell, Heather 10, 160-171
n.2, 174-177 Schickel, Richard 81, 83
Orlandi, Eni 155 Scholz, Anne-Marie 3
2UWD\OÕ øOEHU Schumann, John 192-193, 195-197
2VPDQD÷DR÷OX&LKDQ-42 Scofield, Paul 123-124
222 Index
Scott, Ridley 208-209 Vandal-Sirois, Hugo 9, 140-151

Selvelli, Italo 43-44 Veblen, Thorstein 69 n.7
Selye, Hans 5-6 Venuti, Lawrence 18, 89-91
Shakespeare, William 4-5, 9, 110- Vermeer, Hans J. 133, 144
131, 132 Viertel, Peter 8, 78-85
The Comedy of Errors 112 Voigts-Virchow, Eckart 14-15, 17,
Hamlet 9, 110, 113-118 19
King Lear 9, 112, 122-130 9RONDQ9DPÕN'
The Merchant of Venice 111 Von Rubruk, Wilhelm 26
Romeo and Juliet 110, 112, 132- Vygotsky, L. B. 181, 184
133, 135-138
Two Gentlemen of Verona 110- Wagner, Geoffrey 16, 90
111 Wall, W. D. 6-7
Silk Road 1-4, 6-11, 26-33, 189-199 Webb, Alan 124
Sippl, Diane 122 Weiker, W. F. 42, 44-45
Skopos Theory 133 Welsh, James 79
Smith, Anthony D. 39-40 Wessels, Charlyn 182
Smith, Karen 144 Whelehan, Imelda 7-8, 14-25
Smollett, Tobias 51 White. Hayden 130
6RNRORYLF0HKPHW3DúD Whitman, Walt 73
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 61 Williams, William Carlos 73
Stam, Robert 20-21, 79 Woolf, Virginia 9, 98-101
Streep, Meryl 99 Worth, Irene 124
Stoker, Bram 202 n.2 Wu, Daniel 113
Stoppard, Tom 4 Wu, Hui 9, 110-121
7DQUÕWDQÕU%OHQW103-109 Xiaogang, Feng 110

Tatou, Audrey 155-157 Xiaoming, Huang 114
Terao, Akira 127 Yu, Masayuki 127
Thomas, Gordon K. 51 n.3 Xuehua, Hu 110, 118
Thompson, Hunter S. 68 n.6 Xun, Zhou 113-114
Thousand and One Nights 57, 59
Transculturality 32-33 You, Ge 113
Translation 17-18, 88-92, 132-38,
140-150, 160-169 Zedong. Mao 189
Tutan, Defne Ersin 8, 57-63 Zefeiriadou, Nelly 183-184
Tymoczko, Maria 141 Zeffirelli, Franco 112, 113
Romeo and Juliet (1968) 112
Umunç, Himmet 8, 49-56 Ziyi, Zhang 113, 115
Uzer, Feridun 182

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The Silk Road of Adaptation

The Silk Road of Adaptation:

This book first published 2013

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Copyright © 2013 by Laurence Raw and contributors

ISBN (10): 1-4438-4975-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4975-3

Acknowledgments ................................................................................... viii

Chapter One ................................................................................................ 1

Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 14

Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 26

Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 35

Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 49

Chapter Six ............................................................................................... 57

Chapter Eight ............................................................................................ 78

Chapter Ten .............................................................................................. 98

Chapter Eleven ....................................................................................... 103

Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 110

Chapter Thirteen ..................................................................................... 122

Chapter Fourteen .................................................................................... 132

Chapter Fifteen ....................................................................................... 140

Chapter Sixteen ...................................................................................... 152

Chapter Seventeen .................................................................................. 160

Chapter Eighteen .................................................................................... 172

Chapter Nineteen .................................................................................... 180

Chapter Twenty....................................................................................... 189

Chapter Twenty-One............................................................................... 201

List of Contributors ................................................................................ 213

Index ....................................................................................................... 218

The Silk Road is an historical network of interlinking trade routes that

promote dialogue between representatives of different countries. Hence it

Judith Buchanan’s edited collection The Writer on Film looks at the

the literary or societal spheres (i.e. treating James or Shakespeare as so-

we are first confronted with a complex mathematical problem, we attempt

Watching a film adaptation or reading a literary text involves the

cognitively and emotionally stimulating, and which provides the

The next three pieces prove the truth of Whelehan’s observation

Huston-figure) tried to deal with his inner demons as he completed the

Schell’s fascinating analysis of how Harlequin romances are reworked

WHERE ARE WE AND ARE WE THERE YET?

In a recent volume on adaptation, the editors draw attention to “the

seemed a pertinent and useful one: one pauses at a crossroads, before

distinguish themselves from professional film critics by eschewing any

The editors of the recent volume I mentioned at the start of this

The movement from tunnels, to crossroads, to pockets creates a bizarre

translation theory is required to help us communicate more effectively

Adaptation critics in those days must have viewed themselves as

When he refers to the “great roaring tempest of mass culture” he is of

these [theoretical positions] might be the teething troubles of an emerging

True interdisciplinarity would be very hard to achieve for adaptation

What the recognition of the homology between cultural and biological

Adaptation studies itself remains dogged by its on origins and inspires

Krämer, Lucia. “Adaptation, Experience and Authority: Reflections on the

CROSS-CULTURAL ADAPTATION BY MEDIEVAL

“Visum fuit michi recte quod ingrederer quoddam aluid speculum”

In an attempt to capture his experiences in words, the Franciscan monk

Johannes de Plano Carpini and Odorico of Pordenone; both traveled along

The Silk Road

The Limits of Knowledge

Departure to the New World

The travel journals of Odorico of Pordenone

usually established after a substantial period of cross-cultural

8QGHU SUHVVXUH IURP WKH PDMRU (XURSHDQSRZHUV 6XOWDQ$EGOKDPLG

Though Mahmud vacillated in KLV]HDOIRUUHIRUPDQG6XOWDQV$EGOPHMLG

.XWOD\ %D\GDU (YUHQ ³2VPDQOÕGD *|UHYOL øNL øWDO\DQ 0]LV\HQ