"Macbeth" in Nineteenth-Century Bengal: A Case of Conflicted Indigenization
TL;DR: The authors investigates the contingencies and implications of domesticating and othering Macbeth at this juncture and the collaborative/oppositional strategies of the vernacular text vis-a-vis colonial discourse.
Abstract: Adaptation, a complex bilingual and bicultural process, is further problematised in a colonial scenario inflected by burgeoning nationalism and imperialist counter-oppression. Nagendranath Bose's Karnabir (1884/85), the second extant Bengali translation of Macbeth was written after the First War of Indian Independence in 1857 and its aftermath - the formation of predominantly upper and middle class nationalist organisations that spearheaded the freedom movement. To curb anti-colonial activities in the cultural sphere, the British introduced repressive measures like the Theatre Censorship Act and the Vernacular Press Act. Bengal experienced a revival of Hinduism paradoxically augmented by the nationalist ethos and the divisive tactics of British rule that fostered communalism. This article investigates the contingencies and implications of domesticating and othering Macbeth at this juncture and the collaborative/oppositional strategies of the vernacular text vis-a-vis colonial discourse. The generic problems of negotiating tragedy in a literary tradition marked by its absence are compounded by the socio-linguistic limitations of a Sanskritised adaptation. The conflicted nature of the cultural indigenisation evidenced in Karnabir is explored with special focus on the nature of generic, linguistic and religious acculturation, issues of nomenclature and epistemology, as well as the political and ideological negotiations that the target text engages in with the source text and the intended audience.Keywords: Macbeth, Nagendranath Bose, colonial Bengal, adaptation, literary and linguistic communalismAdaptation, a complex bilingual and bicultural process, is further problematised in a colonial scenario particularly inflected by burgeoning nationalism and imperialist counter-oppression. Nagendranath Bose's Karnabir (1884/85), the second extant Bengali adaptation of Macbeth was written after the First War of Indian Independence in 1857.2 In its wake came the formation of predominantly upper and middle class nationalist organizations that spearheaded the freedom movement. To curb anti-colonial activities in the cultural sphere, the British introduced repressive measures like the Theatre Censorship Act (1876) and the Vernacular Press Act (1878). Bengal experienced a revival of Hinduism paradoxically augmented by the nationalist ethos and the divisive tactics of British rule that fostered communalism.3 This article proposes to investigate the contingencies and implications of domesticating and othering Macbeth at this juncture and the collaborative/ oppositional strategies of the vernacular text visa- vis colonial discourse. The generic problems of negotiating tragedy in a literary tradition marked by its absence are compounded by the socio-linguistic limitations of a Sanskritised adaptation. The latter testifies the translator's desire to coalesce the nationalist and the communal agenda in his project. The conflicted nature of the cultural indigenization in Karnabir is evidenced particularly in the nature of generic, linguistic and religious acculturation, issues of nomenclature and epistemology, as well as the political and ideological negotiations that the target text engages in with the source text and the intended audience.Urban Bengali TheatreThe urban Bengali theatre of the nineteenth century had three converging legacies - the academic foregrounding of Shakespearean texts, the European style theatres set up by the British in Calcutta for their own recreation, and the indigenous amateur attempts by the "enlightened" bhadraloks to modernise the Bengali stage.Shakespeare was an integral part of the English curriculum since its inception, 4 even before Macaulay's Minute (1835) emphasised the bard's inclusion, arguing that it would inculcate an indelible belief in the superiority of the masters' literature and by extension of all things British. Shakespeare's central location in the colonial project was further privileged by nominating the most reputed teacher of an establishment like David Lester Richardson and Derozio of Hindu College to teach his works, and Shakespeare came to be regarded as the most prestigious assignment. …
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a framing-based approach for news translation, which considers the linguistic and paralinguistic elements of news texts in the promotion of certain organizing ideas that the target audience can identify with.
Abstract: Terminological issues are problematic in the analysis of translation processes in news production. In the 1980s, Stetting coined the term “transediting”, which has been widely used in the translation studies literature, but “translation” itself becomes contentious in communication studies, a discipline closely related to news translation research. Only a few communication scholars have specifically dealt with the linguistic and cultural transformations of source texts, but they tend to regard translation as word-for-word transfer, unusual news production. More productive for the study of news translation seems to be the application of the concept of framing, widely used in communication studies. Framing considers the linguistic and paralinguistic elements of news texts in the promotion of certain organizing ideas that the target audience can identify with. In news translation, this entails the adaptation of a text for the target readership, a process can lead to appropriation of source material. Two examples are mentioned to illustrate this point: the appropriation of the US Department of State cables by the Wikileak organisation, and the pro-Romanian slogans produced by the Gandul newspaper as a response to Britain’s anti-immigration campaigns. The final section relates news adaptation to adaptation of other text types, such as literary and historical works.
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TL;DR: The authors examines a Bengali adaptation of Macbeth, namely Rudrapal Natak (published 1874) by Haralal Ray, juxtaposing it with differently accented commentaries on the play arising from the English-educated elites of 19th Bengal, and relating the play to the complex phenomenon of Hindu nationalism.
Abstract: Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance vol. 13 (28), 2016; DOI: 10.1515/mstap-2016-0009 Abstract: The essay examines a Bengali adaptation of Macbeth, namely Rudrapal Natak (published 1874) by Haralal Ray, juxtaposing it with differently accented commentaries on the play arising from the English-educated elites of 19th Bengal, and relating the play to the complex phenomenon of Hindu nationalism. This play remarkably translocates the mythos and ethos of Shakespeares original onto a Hindu field of signifiers, reformulating Shakespeares Witches as bhairavis (female hermits of a Tantric cult) who indulge unchallenged in ghastly rituals. It also tries to associate the gratuitous violence of the play with the fanciful yearning for a martial ideal of nation-building that formed a strand of the Hindu revivalist imaginary. If the depiction of the Witch-figures in Rudrapal undercuts the evocation of a monolithic and urbane Hindu sensibility that would be consistent with colonial modernity, the celebration of their violence may be read as an effort to emphasize the inclusivity (as well as autonomy) of the Hindu tradition and to defy the homogenizing expectations of Western enlightenment Keywords: Macbeth, violence, Bengali, nationalism, Hindu revivalism, colonial modernity. An obscure and undistinguished poet named Girish Chandra Laha wrote an effusive sonnet entitled Shakespeare for the June 1899 issue of Prayas, a little-known Bengali periodical. The poem may be roughly translated and paraphrased thus: O immortal poet of this mortal world! Trained in the school of Nature, through your endeavours you attained keen insightfulness, because of which you could show how ambition, worldly pleasure, jealousy, [and] lust secretly attack the human heart;how they, slowly extinguishing the gentle, eternally manifest light of heavendestroy the righteous souls sense of good and evil. Caught in the vortex of delusion, [how] man of his own accord takes to drinking poison that is covered in nectar; deranged by the temptation of apparent pleasure [how man] causes his soul remorse; [and] at the end [how man] is engulfed by the fire Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Abhishek Sarkar Shakespeare, Macbeth and the Hindu Nationalism of Nineteenth-Century Bengal 118 Abhishek Sarkar of self-disgust, in your work [O immortal poet] there is a radiant illustration of it. In the October 1899 issue of the same magazine, Girish Chandra Laha wrote another sonnet, similarly turgid and thematically continuous with the first one. The latter poem is entitled Macbeth Pathe (On Reading Macbeth), and may be rendered into prose as follows: Intense evil ambitionwonderfully have you shown, poet! How it tempts weak-eyed manhow in the guise of malicious witches causes the slow germination of a poison-tree; watered by the encouragement of a vile woman that tree grows. Evil desire, by covering the Sun of wisdom like a fog, shows splendid fruits hanging from that treesplendid, but alas! full of hidden poison, which the man fails to see as he is deluded by the expectation of forthcoming happiness; [he] destroys every obstacle he sees before him, commits one crime after another until the sharp poison reaches the brain piercing the heart[and] knowledge, intelligence, memory and all are lost at the end. These two sonnets celebrate Shakespeare as an exponent of universal moralitya kind of emphatically didactic and liberal humanist reading that was recurrent in the reception of Shakespeare in 19th century Bengal. Macbeth, which was much familiar to the English-educated Bengalis thanks to the colonial education system instituted by the English, especially generated such readings. Such readings would often be evoked to defend the primal sensationalism of the plays action and characterization, as is seen in the poems mentioned above. In line with this tendency, the essayist Akshay Chandra Sarkar in an article published in the periodical Navajivan serially between 1887 and 1889 accepts the play as a cautionary fable, reading its protagonist as a superlative exemplar of human corruptibility and the atrocity consequent upon it. …
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Book•
07 Sep 1991
TL;DR: The Paradox of Teacher's Personality as discussed by the authors explores the paradox of teacher's personality in the context of colonisation and the pursuit of equality in an educational setting. But it does not address the problem of self-identity.
Abstract: Introduction PART ONE: DYNAMICS OF COLONISATION Colonial Citizen as an Educational Ideal Appropriate Knowledge Conflict of Curriculum and Culture Meek Dictator The Paradox of Teacher's Personality PART TWO: DYNAMICS OF THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE Pursuit of Equality Quest for Self-Identity Meanings of Progress Conclusion
230 citations
Book•
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01 Jan 1955
TL;DR: The great rebellion by is one of the very best seller books on the planet as discussed by the authors. But have you had it? Not at all? Silly of you, don't have it? You can get it simply right here.
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01 Jan 1896
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""Macbeth" in Nineteenth-Century Ben..." refers background in this paper
...…legacies – the academic foregrounding of Shakespearean texts, the 2 Dubbed as ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ by contemporary British historians (Kaye 1888-89; Malleson 2006), the Great Uprising brought together, for the first time in Indian history, the ‘dispossessed and discontented Rajas [kings] and…...
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