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"The world to me is but a ceaseless storm": Pericles, The Porpoise, and the Resistance of Exile
Comparative Drama Pub Date : 2023-08-21 , DOI: 10.1353/cdr.2023.a904533
Rebekah Bale

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • "The world to me is but a ceaseless storm":Pericles, The Porpoise, and the Resistance of Exile
  • Rebekah Bale (bio)

The adaptation of Shakespeare's plays into fiction has a long history. Early on it was considered a useful way to introduce the stories of the plays to children, as in Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, and more recently, Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories. However, contemporary authors have seen an opportunity to adapt and expand the stories of and within the plays in more sophisticated and mature ways. The most high-profile examples of this trend come from the Hogarth Press's series of "retellings" begun in 2016, which features adaptations by such giants of contemporary fiction as Margaret Atwood, Ann Tyler, Jo Nesbø, and Jeanette Winterson.

There is a clear advantage to having a familiar story to work with, and Hogarth authors were given the freedom to choose the play on which to base their work. The authors involved, it is fair to say, represent a range of talent and genre as well as literary heft. The plays chosen also largely represent Shakespeare's major works. However, the novel on which I focus in this essay, Mark Haddon's The Porpoise (2019), takes a slightly different tack by adapting one of Shakespeare's lesser known, collaboratively (and thus unevenly) written late romances, Pericles.

Pericles' Nomadic Fortunes

As Adam Smyth writes in the London Review of Books, the early reception of Pericles was rapturous. By 1609, Smyth reports, it had been performed "divers and sundry times," being a go-to performance for any occasion [End Page 87] needing something popular and rousing.1 It was the only late play to be printed while Shakespeare was still alive and, as Smyth continues, appears to have become a "by-word for audience appeal."

The play's popularity tailed off dramatically in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, primarily due to its distasteful portrayals of incest and prostitution. These were not considered to be reflective of the moral education which Shakespeare was supposed to provide. The ambiguities of the play did not endear it to the didacticism of the literary establishment at the time. Although provisionally a happy ending, the lack of "punishment" meted out to King Antiochus for his incestuous relationship with his daughter was problematic—we only learn that both have died at the end of the play, and their deaths are presented as incidental rather than the proper conclusion to a crime-and-punishment narrative. Marina's kidnapping and stay in the brothel scenes also raised concerns, being largely performed as comedic rather than dangerous, thus not cleaving to the conventional wisdom surrounding women's virtue and its loss.

Pericles did receive a brief post-World War II revival, possibly due to the protagonist's experience of suffering and rebirth as well as the transient nature of its settings. Yet the play has only truly returned from its artistic and critical exile in recent years. It could be said to be "having a moment"—its narrative and thematic combination of incestuous secrets, action scenes, isolation, hospitality, and the responsibility we have towards each other as strangers, migrants, and refugees all seem to resonate with contemporary cultural and political concerns. The loosely drawn, episodic nature of the play also reflects the fractured nature of our present selves and societies. As Patrick O'Malley states, "Pericles insists on the gaps, the resistance to the imperative of choosing the One."2 Although O'Malley is primarily focused on a queer reading of the play, he rightly points to the resistance of choosing one identity or consciousness over another as one likely reason for its current vogue.

In a discussion of a recent prison production, Niels Herold notes that the play, somewhat counterintuitively, suits such an environment well. Comparing the spare resources of prison theatre programs with the "empty stage" of the early modern theatre, he argues that the play is especially appropriate for the prison context despite the initial reticence of the prisoners themselves faced with its odd design.3 Herold explains that the "restless voyaging" and the "episodic continuum of scenes" in the [End Page 88] play's formal structure...



中文翻译:

“对我来说,世界不过是一场永不停歇的风暴”:伯里克利、海豚和流亡抵抗

以下是内容的简短摘录,以代替摘要:

  • “世界对我来说不过是一场永不停息的风暴”:伯里克利、海豚和流亡抵抗
  • 丽贝卡·贝尔(简介)

将莎士比亚戏剧改编成小说有着悠久的历史。早期,它被认为是向孩子们介绍戏剧故事的有用方式,例如查尔斯和玛丽·兰姆的莎士比亚故事,以及最近莱昂·加菲尔德的莎士比亚故事。然而,当代作家看到了以更复杂和成熟的方式改编和扩展戏剧故事的机会。这一趋势最引人注目的例子来自霍加斯出版社 2016 年开始的系列“重述”,其中包括玛格丽特·阿特伍德、安·泰勒、乔·内斯伯和珍妮特·温特森等当代小说巨头的改编作品。

拥有一个熟悉的故事有一个明显的优势,霍加斯的作者可以自由选择戏剧作为他们的作品基础。公平地说,参与其中的作者代表了一系列的才华、流派以及文学影响力。所选择的戏剧也很大程度上代表了莎士比亚的主要作品。然而,我在本文中关注的小说,马克·哈登的《海豚》(2019),采取了略有不同的策略,改编了莎士比亚鲜为人知的、合作(因此不平衡)的晚期浪漫小说《伯里克利》

伯里克利的游牧财富

正如亚当·史密斯在《伦敦书评》中所写,伯里克利的早期接受是令人欣喜的。据史密斯报道,到 1609 年,它已经在“不同的场合”进行过表演,成为任何需要流行和振奋人心的场合的首选表演[结束第 87 页]1这是莎士比亚在世时唯一出版的晚期戏剧,正如史密斯所言,它似乎已成为“吸引观众的代名词”。

该剧的受欢迎程度在十八世纪和十九世纪急剧下降,主要是由于其对乱伦和卖淫的令人厌恶的描绘。这些不被认为反映了莎士比亚应该提供的道德教育。该剧的含糊之处并没有使其受到当时文学界的说教主义的欢迎。虽然结局暂时是圆满的,但安条克国王因与女儿的乱伦关系而没有受到“惩罚”是有问题的——我们只知道两人在剧结束时都死了,而且他们的死被表现为偶然而不是罪与罚叙述的正确结论。玛丽娜被绑架和留在妓院的场景也引起了人们的关注,主要是作为喜剧而不是危险的,

伯里克利确实在二战后得到了短暂的复兴,这可能是由于主角的苦难和重生经历以及其背景的短暂性。然而,这部剧直到最近几年才真正从艺术和批评的放逐中回归。它可以说是“度过了一段时光”——它的叙事和主题组合了乱伦的秘密、动作场面、孤立、热情好客,以及我们作为陌生人、移民和难民对彼此的责任,似乎都与当代文化产生了共鸣。和政治担忧。该剧的情节松散、情节性也反映了我们现在的自我和社会的破碎本质。正如帕特里克·奥马利所说,“伯里克利坚持间隙,2尽管奥马利主要关注该剧的酷儿解读,但他正确地指出,抵制选择一种身份或意识而不是另一种身份或意识是该剧当前流行的一个可能原因。

在讨论最近的一部监狱作品时,尼尔斯·赫罗德指出,这部剧虽然有点违反直觉,但很适合这样的环境。他将监狱戏剧节目的闲置资源与早期现代戏剧的“空舞台”进行比较,认为该剧特别适合监狱环境,尽管囚犯们最初对其奇怪的设计持沉默态度。3 Herold 解释说, [尾页 88]戏剧的形式结构中的“不安宁的航行”和“场景的连续性” ......

更新日期:2023-08-21
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