Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Civil (Construções). Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 2010

Thesis--Berlin. / "Die ganze Abhandlung ... erscheint ... als Band XXXIX der ... Palaestra (Berlin, Mayer & Müller)." Vita.

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Traditionally a Shakespeare film is seen as an act of translation from one idealised source of meaning (the text) to another (the language of cinema). This approach dismisses or misinterprets the majority of films made because they are either silent or foreign. Silent films, it is claimed cannot recreate the text. Many foreign films distort the plays' 'meaning' to cater for their audiences. This thesis challenges these assumptions by analysing two representative examples from these 'areas of resistance', Rather than compare these to an ideal concept of the plays it seeks to contextualise the films in their social and historical positions. The subjects chosen are the silent films made prior to 1912, and Kurosawa's Kumonosu jo (Macbeth. 1957). By studying the history of nineteenth Shakespeare presentation in art, literature and the theatre this thesis demonstrates that the pre-1912 films were part of a long-established tradition of silent and spectacular performances. Between 1907 and 1912 British companies used this tradition to try and create a high-class style of film to challenge the influx of mass-produced narrative-base melodramas from North America. The second section describes how Shakespeare was used by a nascent class of urban intellectuals in 19th and 20th century Japan to define the problems of the individual's relationship to the state. Kumonosu jo , a film by a self-confessed liberal humanist, perpetuates this tradition by formulating a nihilist study of militarism using the structures of the Noh theatre. Finally the thesis points out that each of these areas of film is emblematic of the position of Shakespeare in a specific culture at a specific time. Only an analysis which seeks to understand a film as a historically conditioned act of meaning can avoid the mis-readings and sweeping appropriations that non-orthodox Shakespeare films have been subject to in the past.

Whatever are the other merits of Macbeth, it must be classed as one of the most penetrating studies of conscience in literature. Shakespeare does not attempt to describe in the drama how the ordinary criminal would react to evil, but how Shakespeare himself would have felt if he had fallen into crime. 1 The ramifications of this conflict between the conscience of a man of genius and the supernatural forces of wickedness, therefore, assume immense dimensions. "Macbeth leaves on most readers a profound impression of the misery of a guilty conscience and the retribution of crime . . . But what Shakespeare perhaps felt even more deeply, when he wrote this play, was the incalculability of evil--that in meddling with it human beings do they know not what."2 This drama displays an evil not to be accounted for simply in terms of the protagonist's will or his causal relationships to evil. It is an agency which is beyond the power of Macbeth's will; and his conscience, as powerful and imaginative as it is, can only warn him that he is involving himself in a force which will cause him unexpected and hideous mental pain. If there is a moral in Macbeth, it is obviously that men should not tamper with evil, for not even a deep-rooted conscience and an ascendant will can contend with its influence.

I have proved that prevarication is a current that initiates the evil actions that are committed. I have traced some of the oblique, dishonest euphemisms used by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in their language in their attempt to deceive themselves and others of their intentions. This linguistic device sharpens our awareness of their prevarication and avoidance of facing the truth, and their attempt at self-deception and equivocation. They enter into physical and spiritual duplicity. The Witches are structurally important and function in contributing to the ambiguous action of the play, and initiate the symbolism of darkness and evil that prevails. Macbeth's echoic diction links him to the forces of equivocation. Banquo dismisses their information, whereas Macbeth's empathy with the Witches and his ripeness for corruption result in the same information becoming disinformation to him. Macbeth's prevarication continues in order to secure his position obtained through heinous crimes and his lack of integrity in a world where it is difficult to distinguish appearance and reality. Lady Macbeth reveals she is in corrupt collusion with Macbeth, is a prevaricator by means of obliquity and mutual intrigue, and shows her shrewdness and hypocrisy towards Duncan. She undermines logic, imagination and metaphysics and overpowers Macbeth's indecision to commit the murder, as she acts as a "thorn" to his conscience challenging his manhood and courage. Macbeth is coerced into acceding to the murder as a result of Lady Macbeth's bombastic exposure of the frailties violated by evil. The images of blood and sight merge when Macbeth sees his horrific hands after the murder a murder that symbolically "murders" sleep. Shakespeare uses the Porter to indicate the "equivocator" is synonymous with Macbeth, the prevaricator. Storms accompany the central action of the murder of Duncan, and the tremendous upheaval of nature reflects the tempest roaring within Macbeth. Macbeth's swollen, puffed up, deceptive language in his false declaration of his mourning for the loss of Duncan, illustrates his ability to prevaricate at his best. After Duncan's murder, Macbeth continues to secure his power and security by his desperate series of futile murders, which he commits without a moral self-catechismal examination of his conscience: he prevaricates with impunity. From their earlier close intimate association there is a deterioration in the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: their ways have separated through guilt and lack of trust. Lady Macbeth declines to a languid, exhausted woman in the sleep-walking scene, as she recalls her past crimes and atrocities. Her personal confusion, anguish and disorientation result in a cataclysmic shudder that leads to her physical and spiritual implosion. Macbeth remains physically aggressive. His tactics for his physical confrontation with death are irrevocable: he suffers an isolated spiritual implosion in his virtual negation of life. I have shown that Macbeth is an orchestrated composition in which prevarication is the tool used for furthering ambition that motivates the action of the drama. / Thesis (MA)--PU vir CHO, 1986

I have proved that prevarication is a current that initiates the evil actions that are committed. I have traced some of the oblique, dishonest euphemisms used by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in their language in their attempt to deceive themselves and others of their intentions. This linguistic device sharpens our awareness of their prevarication and avoidance of facing the truth, and their attempt at self-deception and equivocation. They enter into physical and spiritual duplicity. The Witches are structurally important and function in contributing to the ambiguous action of the play, and initiate the symbolism of darkness and evil that prevails. Macbeth's echoic diction links him to the forces of equivocation. Banquo dismisses their information, whereas Macbeth's empathy with the Witches and his ripeness for corruption result in the same information becoming disinformation to him. Macbeth's prevarication continues in order to secure his position obtained through heinous crimes and his lack of integrity in a world where it is difficult to distinguish appearance and reality. Lady Macbeth reveals she is in corrupt collusion with Macbeth, is a prevaricator by means of obliquity and mutual intrigue, and shows her shrewdness and hypocrisy towards Duncan. She undermines logic, imagination and metaphysics and overpowers Macbeth's indecision to commit the murder, as she acts as a "thorn" to his conscience challenging his manhood and courage. Macbeth is coerced into acceding to the murder as a result of Lady Macbeth's bombastic exposure of the frailties violated by evil. The images of blood and sight merge when Macbeth sees his horrific hands after the murder a murder that symbolically "murders" sleep. Shakespeare uses the Porter to indicate the "equivocator" is synonymous with Macbeth, the prevaricator. Storms accompany the central action of the murder of Duncan, and the tremendous upheaval of nature reflects the tempest roaring within Macbeth. Macbeth's swollen, puffed up, deceptive language in his false declaration of his mourning for the loss of Duncan, illustrates his ability to prevaricate at his best. After Duncan's murder, Macbeth continues to secure his power and security by his desperate series of futile murders, which he commits without a moral self-catechismal examination of his conscience: he prevaricates with impunity. From their earlier close intimate association there is a deterioration in the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: their ways have separated through guilt and lack of trust. Lady Macbeth declines to a languid, exhausted woman in the sleep-walking scene, as she recalls her past crimes and atrocities. Her personal confusion, anguish and disorientation result in a cataclysmic shudder that leads to her physical and spiritual implosion. Macbeth remains physically aggressive. His tactics for his physical confrontation with death are irrevocable: he suffers an isolated spiritual implosion in his virtual negation of life. I have shown that Macbeth is an orchestrated composition in which prevarication is the tool used for furthering ambition that motivates the action of the drama. / Thesis (MA)--PU vir CHO, 1986

Inaug.-dis.--Rostock.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1982.

No description available.