Tungtang, Paradee (2011) Shakespeare in Thailand. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Unlike most Asian nations to which Shakespeare was imported with the
colonizers during the mid-1800s to impose Western literary culture on the
colonized, in the case of Thailand, it is the other way round. Thailand (or Siam as
it was called then) managed to escape colonization by Western powers, but during
this politically unstable period, Siam felt the urgent need to westernize the
country. A period of intensive westernization thus began. Shakespeare arrived as
one of several significant elements of the nation’s self-westernization in literary
education. In 1916, the name of Shakespeare became widely known in Siam as
one of his plays, The Merchant of Venice, was translated by King Vajiravudh
(1881-1925), who is highly regarded as a prolific dramatist and all-around man of
letters in the country. The King himself initiated Western literary translation by
translating three plays by Shakespeare, namely The Merchant of Venice (1916),
As You Like It (1921), and Romeo and Juliet (1922), and also by adapting
Shakespeare’s Othello (1925) into a Siamese conventional dance drama playtext.
Although there were some other attempts before and after the King to translate
Shakespeare, none of them has been successful in leaving a memorable impact in
Thai literary circles as much as the King’s version. Translating and staging
Shakespeare’s works in Thailand became rare, practised only within a small circle
of literary scholars. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, there
have been a handful of attempts to translate and stage Shakespearean plays by
commercial Thai theatre practitioners. To stage Shakespeare’s plays in Thailand
especially in a contemporary context, most production teams have encountered a similar difficulty, that of bridging the gap to bring Shakespeare to Thai popular
audiences who embrace different backgrounds in dramatic practice and aesthetics.
The main purposes of this study are, therefore, to examine how
Shakespeare has been translated, staged, and received by Thai readers and
audiences from the late nineteenth century when Shakespeare was introduced in
Siam until today, and to locate his influences and impact on Thai literary and
theatrical culture. This study is designed to shed light on the history of Thai
translations of Shakespeare and also to provide an analysis of the translation
strategies adopted by early Thai translators to domesticate Shakespeare into the
Thai context. So the thesis examines the process of text appropriation and
domestication adopted by Thai translators and theatre practitioners to make
Shakespeare accessible to Thai readers and popular audiences. The use of
Shakespeare’s plots and allusions to Shakespeare’s plays in contemporary Thai
television soap operas is also another main focus of the study. This study also
suggests that the domestication process applied to Shakespeare both in translation
and in staging is influenced by the changes in the social, political and aesthetic
contexts of each different period; furthermore, the process of domestication
obviously becomes less problematic the further the country moves towards
westernization.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Translations into Thai, Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stage history -- Thailand, Thai drama
Official Date:	March 2011
Dates:	Date Event March 2011 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Shewring, Margaret ; Long, Lynne
Sponsors:	Ford Foundation
Extent:	xxxiii, 366 leaves : ill.
Language:	eng

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