The Domestication and Arabization of the Bard: Towards the Reception of Shakespeare in the Arab World

Mohammed Naser Hassoon

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.23.03

Authors

Mohammed Naser Hassoon University of Thi-Qar, Nassiriyah, Iraq https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7979-4469

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.23.03

Keywords:

adaptation, Arabic, Arabization, cultural transfer, Khazal al-Majidi, repositioning, Shakespeare, translation

Abstract

Since Najib al-Haddad and Tanyusʻ Abdu’s first Arabic versions of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet at the end of the 19th century, the reception of Shakespeare in the Arab world has gone through a process of adaptation, Arabization, and translation proper. We consider the process of Arabization / domestication of Shakespeare’s plays since Najib al-Haddad’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and Tanyusʻ Abdu’s adaptation of Hamlet, to the achievements of Khalīl Mutran and Muhammad Hamdi. We underline, as particular examples of Shakespeare’s appropriation, the literary response of Ali Ahmed Bakathir, Muhammad al-Maghut and Mamduh Udwan, with a particular stress on Khazal al-Majidi and his adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. All these writers reposition Shakespeare’s plays in an entirely different cultural space.

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Author Biography

Mohammed Naser Hassoon, University of Thi-Qar, Nassiriyah, Iraq

Mohammed Naser Hassoon is a lecturer in English at the University of Thi-Qar, in Nassiriyah, Iraq, where he teaches English and American literature. Dr. Mohammed Naser Hassoon obtained his PhD in English from the University of Craiova, Romania (2018), with a dissertation on The writer’s quest for identity: the multifold dimensions of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, which he published as The Arab Moby-Dick: Bridging the Gap between Cultures (Craiova, Universitaria, 2019). He has an MA in English from “BAMU” in Aurangabad, India (2014), and a BA in English from the College of Education for Humanities of the University of Thi Qar, in Al-Nasiriyah, Iraq (1997). He attended a number of conferences where he contributed the results of his research, and published articles in academic journals and volumes in Romania, Serbia, Poland and the UK. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7979-4469

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