‘It Is Written’: Tom Stoppard and the Drama of the Intertext

Meyer, Kinereth

doi:10.1353/cdr.1989.0024

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 12 publications

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“…Meyer notes that each reference serves to emphasize the main theme of Stoppard's play, which is the way in which words can be tied to human action. 53 Miss Julie, for instance, investigates the 'levels of discourse in language of sexual attraction', while Othello explores the 'role of language in the attractions and blindness of power', and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore connects the erotic and the political 'in the convoluted language of palace intrigue'.…”

Section: Intertextual Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Stop Putting Words in my Mouth!’: Undermining the Binary between the Actual and the Fictional

Krüger¹

2016

New Theatre Quarterly

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The distinction between fictionality and actuality takes on a special significance in the theatre, which contains two frames simultaneously: a fictional and an actual. Although the presence of these frames is integral to performance, the demarcation between them often becomes blurred. Both Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing (1982) and Sam Holcroft's Edgar and Annabel (2011) problematize the relationship between an actor and the character that he or she portrays. While Stoppard's characters sometimes indulge in fictional portrayals, Holcroft's embody additional characters out of a sense of duty and commitment to a political cause. Although the stakes of keeping the illusion in place are seemingly much higher in Holcroft's play, both suggest that the blurring of the line between the actual and the fictional is not only inevitable, but also potentially dangerous. Lida Krüger is a senior lecturer in English Studies at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. Her current research interests include fictionality in theatre, the position of the audience in performance, and theatre archiving.

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Section: Intertextual Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Stop Putting Words in my Mouth!’: Undermining the Binary between the Actual and the Fictional

Krüger¹

2016

New Theatre Quarterly

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Stoppard’s Postmodern Pastiche: Travestie

Park-Finch¹

2009

thenewkoreanjournalofenglishlnaguageliterature

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"With Tears and a Journey": Recreating Shakespeare's Life on Screen

Aguilar¹,

Isabel²

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The purpose of this paper is to study the film Shakespeare in Love (1998) from the perspective of biopics with a twofold aim. Firstly, our intention is to consider how the adaptation of a writer's life, in Leitch's words "of non-literary or nonfictional sourcetexts", can "enlarge the range of adaptation studies by revealing the parochialism of theories that restrict their examples to films based on fictional texts" (2008: 67). Thus, our aim is to explore the way this film recreates Shakespeare's life, taking into account the most recent studies about the biopic genre and the latest theories of adaptation. Secondly, with the analysis of this film we intend to contribute some ideas to Carretero González and Rodríguez Martín's view on the arguable necessity of biopics being completely "faithful to the original story" (2010: 603). Besides, if an adaptation, either fictional, nonfictional, literary or non-literary, is according to Stam an intertextual dialogue (2000: 66), the importance of analysing the notion of intertextuality in this film is already stated. The movie not only brings Shakespeare's life into the big screen from a 20th century perspective but it also fictionalises the Bard's life when mixing it with his literary works. We can also trace in the film the use of different sources which may go from Shakespeare's biographies to previous adaptations of his life and works. Moreover, it is necessary to take into account "the interpenetrative dynamics of Stoppardian intertextuality" which made Bloom apply "the ancient Roman stage trope of contaminatio 2 to Stoppard's plays" (Meyer 1989: 106). According to Meyer, contaminatio is a "technique" Stoppard may use "as a contextualizing and historicizing force making a play not only a comment on another play but also what Stoppard has called a commentary on something else in life" (Ibid.). From our viewpoint, the same can be applied to Stoppard's work as a screenwriter, as can be seen in his script for Shakespeare in Love 3. 1 This phrase is uttered by Queen Elizabeth towards the end of the film, when everybody knows about the close relationship between Viola and Shakespeare. After the performance of Romeo and Juliet, Lord Wessex asks the Queen: "How is this to end", and she answers: "As stories must when love's denied-with tears and a journey". In fact, after they realise their love is impossible and that Viola has to leave with Lord Wessex to Virginia, they decide to briefly sketch Shakespeare's next play, Twelfth Night, which deals with a shipwrecked girl called Viola. 2 Harold Bloom defines contaminatio as a "kind of interlacing between an old play and a new one"

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‘It Is Written’: Tom Stoppard and the Drama of the Intertext

Cited by 3 publications

References 12 publications

‘Stop Putting Words in my Mouth!’: Undermining the Binary between the Actual and the Fictional

‘Stop Putting Words in my Mouth!’: Undermining the Binary between the Actual and the Fictional

Stoppard’s Postmodern Pastiche: Travestie

"With Tears and a Journey": Recreating Shakespeare's Life on Screen

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