At first glance, the long tradition of Quebecois adaptations of Shakespeare might seem paradoxical, since Quebec is a francophone nation seeking political independence and has little direct connection to the British literary canon. However, it is precisely this cultural distance that allows Quebecois playwrights to play irreverently with Shakespeare and use his texts to explore issues of nation and gender which are closely connected to each other. Soon after the Quiet Revolution, adaptations such as Robert Gurik's Hamlet, prince du Quebec and Jean-Claude Germain's Rodeo et Juliette raised the question "To be or not to be free" in order to interrogate how Quebec could take action to achieve independence. In Macbeth and La tempete, Michel Garneau "tradapts" Shakespeare and situates his texts in the context of the Conquest. Jean-Pierre Ronfard's Lear and Vie et mort du Roi Boiteux carnivalize the nation and permit women to rise to power. Adaptations since 1990 reveal awareness of the need for cultural and gender diversity so that women, queers, and immigrants may contribute more to the nation's development. Since Quebec is simultaneously colonial, neo-colonial, and postcolonial, Quebecois playwrights negotiate differently than English Canadians the fine line between the enrichment of their local culture and its possible contamination, assimilation, or effacement by Shakespeare's overwhelming influence, which thus allows them to appropriate his texts in service of gender issues and the decolonization of the Quebec nation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85904 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Drouin, Jennifer |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002271898, proquestno: AAINR21641, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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