Leiden University Student Repository

Jansen, Wierik (2020)

Media-Controlled Political Arenas: Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in Adaptation

Master thesis | Literary Studies (MA)

The plays by Shakespeare have been adapted countless times. However, the original plays are often themselves based on other stories, or historical accounts. The history plays, for example, are written on the basis of historical accounts. In this sense, they are already adaptations in their own right. This makes any adaptation of one of his plays a double adaptation; an adaptation of an adaptation. This thesis will take this notion as its starting point. It will take a look at how Shakespeare used his sources in Coriolanus, and after analysing this play, two adaptations for the screen will be analysed, Ralph Fiennes 2011 film and Robert LePage’s 2019 stage adaptation. The focus of the analyses will be on which themes are emphasised in a particular adaptation, and how these themes are informed by the times in which the work was created. Fiennes and LePage move the political arena away from the speeches Shakespeare uses in his play. Instead, they create a modernised, media arena...Show moreThe plays by Shakespeare have been adapted countless times. However, the original plays are often themselves based on other stories, or historical accounts. The history plays, for example, are written on the basis of historical accounts. In this sense, they are already adaptations in their own right. This makes any adaptation of one of his plays a double adaptation; an adaptation of an adaptation. This thesis will take this notion as its starting point. It will take a look at how Shakespeare used his sources in Coriolanus, and after analysing this play, two adaptations for the screen will be analysed, Ralph Fiennes 2011 film and Robert LePage’s 2019 stage adaptation. The focus of the analyses will be on which themes are emphasised in a particular adaptation, and how these themes are informed by the times in which the work was created. Fiennes and LePage move the political arena away from the speeches Shakespeare uses in his play. Instead, they create a modernised, media arena becomes the place where politicians fight for control over Rome.Show less

Shakespeare

Coriolanus

Adaptation

Adaptation Studies

Robert LePage

Film Adaptation

Ralph Fiennes

Author

Jansen, Wierik

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

English Literature and Culture

Supervisors

Dijkhuizen, Jan Frans van

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en