CALL FOR PAPERS “The International Translation and Circulation of Shakespeare Criticism” – thematic volume

2024-11-08

CALL FOR PAPERS 

“The International Translation and Circulation of Shakespeare Criticism” – thematic volume 

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance vol 32 no 46 (2025)

Guest Editors: Raphaël Ingelbien and Carmen Reisinger (KU Leuven)

 

Translations and adaptations of Shakespeare’s works into various languages have been widely studied. The circulation of critical writings on Shakespeare, by contrast, has attracted very little scholarly attention.

As one of the oldest and most widely practised forms of reflection on vernacular literatures, Shakespeare criticism has helped shape modern literary scholarship worldwide. Shakespeare criticism became a notable genre in various literatures: in Europe, but also beyond. Existing discussions of Shakespeare criticism tend to compartmentalize texts into national or linguistic traditions (Paulin 2003, Hollingsworth 2012). With some exceptions that have focused on specific authors or even individual texts, (Körner 1929, Sauer 1981, Ingelbien 2019, Haquette 2022, Reisinger 2023, Reisinger 2024), there is little analysis of the international dimension of the publication and consumption of Shakespeare criticism within specific cultures, and existing studies are generally focused on interactions between metropolitan languages: English, German, and French (Heilbron 1999). Much work remains to be done to test whether we can speak of a “global Shakespeare criticism beyond the nation state” (Huang 2017).

The mutual influence between Shakespeare critics of different nations is well known and has in some cases been extensively studied and debated (see e.g. the controversy that has long surrounded Coleridge’s debt to Schlegel). This special issue aims to go beyond questions of influence, in order to refocus the debate on the actual channels of transmission through which Shakespeare criticism has been circulated and received across linguistic and national boundaries, and on the various new audiences that it reached through that circulation. We particularly welcome proposals on the translation and circulation of Shakespeare criticism in ‘smaller’ languages, or in regions outside of Europe.

Topics can include:

  • Translations (faithful or not, authorized or not, with or without paratextual framing…), translators and publishers of Shakespeare criticism in different languages.
  • The extracting, anthologizing and international canonization of critical pronouncements on Shakespeare.
  • Reprints of Shakespeare criticism in different parts of the Anglophone world / other large linguistic areas.
  • Lectures and lecture tours on Shakespeare (Schlegel, Coleridge, Dowden, Bradley, the British Academy Shakespeare lectures).
  • New media (from 18th- and 19th-century periodicals to 21st-century digital platforms) and their impact on the dissemination/vulgarization of Shakespeare criticism.
  • Audiences and the language(s) of Shakespeare criticism.     
  • The rise of English as an international academic discipline and its impact on the production of Shakespeare criticism in other vernaculars. 

 

Timeline: Contributions should be sent to raphael.ingelbien@kuleuven.be and carmen.reisinger@kuleuven.be for an initial round of peer-reviewing: we will consider abstracts (as well as complete article submissions) by 30 December with Authors able to work on complete articles towards 15 April 2025.

Deadline for article abstracts (300 words): 30 December 2024

Final deadline for complete article submissions, interviews and reviews: 15 April 2025

Each final submission should include an abstract (ca. 250-300 words) and a list of ca. 5-8 key words. Articles should be no less than 6,500 words (abstract, key words, notes and bibliography included). We would also recommend a maximum limit of 9,000 words. Ideally, we are looking for contributions of ca. 7,000 words. 

 

Bibliography

Heilbron, Johan. ‘Towards a Sociology of Translation: Book Translations as a Cultural World-System.’ European Journal of Social Theory 2.4 (1999): 429-444.

Haquette, Jean-Louis. ‘“From Italy, back to Britain”: Martin Sherlock et la circulation européenne du modèle shakespearien à la fin du XVIIIe siècle.’ Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare 40 (2022). https://doi.org/10.4000/shakespeare.6753

Hollingsworth, Mark. ‘Shakespeare Criticism.’ Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. by Gail Marshall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 39-60.

Huang, Alexa. ‘Global Shakespeare Criticism beyond the Nation State.’ The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance. Ed. by James C. Bulman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 423-440.

Ingelbien, Raphaël. ‘Single or Return, Ladies? The Politics of Translating and Publishing Heine on Shakespeare.’ Comparative Critical Studies 16.2-3 (2019): 181-200.

Körner, Josef. Die Botschaft der deutschen Romantik an Europa. Augsburg: Benno Filser 1929.

Paulin, Roger. The Critical Reception of Shakespeare in Germany: 1682-1914: Native Literature and Foreign Genius. Hildesheim: Olms, 2003.

Reisinger, Carmen. ‘A Fragment(ation) of Johann Gottfried Herder: the First English Translation of “Shakespear” (1773).’ Herder Jahrbuch / Herder Yearbook 16 (2022): 114-135.

Reisinger, Carmen. ‘The Making of a Shakespeare Critic: Partial English Translations of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre in the Long Nineteenth Century.’ English Studies 105.1 (2024): 28-48.

Sauer, Thomas. A. W. Schlegel’s Shakespearean Criticism in England, 1811-1846. Bonn: Grundmann, 1981.