Schedule / Horaire
Friday 25 April 2014, 9h-10h30
Room: V106A.
Leaders / Organisateurs
Carla Dente, Martin Procházka, Pavel Drábek (Italy-Czech Rep.-UK)
Participants
- Carla Dente, University of Pisa (Italy)
Heteroglossia and Text Construction in the Framework of Political and Cultural Diversity: From Shakespeare’s Henry V to Greig’s Dunsinane - Pavel Drábek, University of Hull (United Kingdom)
Heteroglossic Subjects: the Dialogism of the Shakespearean Actor - Martin Procházka, Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic)
Chronotope and Heterotopia: Carnival Time and Grotesque Bodies in Twelfth Night and The Second Part of Henry IV
Abstracts / Résumés
1. Carla Dente, University of Pisa (Italy)
Heteroglossia and Text Construction in the Framework of Political and Cultural Diversity: From Shakespeare’s Henry V to Greig’s Dunsinane
Bakthin’s notion of dialogism as multilingualism is discussed starting from the concepts of nationhood and statehood, cultural achievements at the foundations of Britain as a nation and of English as expression of British identity, constructed in the early modern period. Nowadays we are living through a period when the very idea of U.K. as a unified state is more questioned than ever, and the unity on the point of breaking up. My aim is to discuss the separate ways in which Shakespeare and Greig discuss Scottish history according to their own agendas, focusing on language and intercultural communication.
2. Pavel Drábek, University of Hull (United Kingdom)
Heteroglossic Subjects: the Dialogism of the Shakespearean Actor
Bakhtin’s heteroglossia is not only a useful stylistic term but may be used as a critical tool for approaching the acting subject: the character as created by the actor onstage. Shakespeare’s heteroglossia – the multiplicity of voices, registers, inner dialogues as well as character functions – can no more be said to create integral human identities but rather subjectivities in statu nascendi. The Shakespearean heteroglossic subject quaintly coincides with the French post-structuralists notions of the self and the rhizome. The paper takes into consideration transmutations of Shakespearean heteroglossia in critical editions, translations, and on concrete actor performances of Shakespearean roles.
3. Martin Procházka, Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic)
Chronotope and Heterotopia: Carnival Time and Grotesque Bodies in Twelfth Night and The Second Part of Henry IV
Interpreting the grotesque and the carnival time in Shakespeare leads to the recognition of both the advantages and the limitations of Bakhtin’s concepts of the grotesque body and the chronotope. While the former is based on the assumptions of a homogeneous time and organic form, the latter breaks with the organic paradigm and anticipates notions of dynamic, open and heterogeneous systems. The paper will explore the possibility of interpreting the spatio-temporal aspects of the above plays in the confrontation of Bakhtin’s and Foucault’s approaches, concentrating on homogeneity vs. heterogeneity of time and space and on the related features of bodies.