William Shakespeare and Slovene dramatists (II) : (the makers of myths) : J. Jurčič, F. Levstik, I. Cankar, O. Župančič, B. Kreft

english

2010

volume 43, issue 1/2

English drama   Slovene drama   Slovene literature

Univerza v Ljubljani, Filozofska fakulteta
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of William Shakespeare on Slovene playwrights in the period between 1876, which marks the appearance of Jurčič - Levstik´s Tugomer, and the 1930s, when Oton Župančič published his tragedy Veronika Deseniška (Veronika of Desenice, 1924) and, a few years later, Bratko Kreft his history, Celjski grofje (The Counts of Celje, 1932). Together with Cankar´s works all of the plays discussed in this study deal with one of the well-known Slovene myths. In the previous number of Acta Neophilologica I published my study on the first Slovene tragedy Miss Jenny Love, which was published in Augsburg in 1780.1 The Romantic period, which followed this publication, was in Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe mainly characterized by the appearance of poetry, with a few exceptions of plays which were primarily intended for reading and not for the stage (Closet Drama). Let me mention here that in the Romantic period some of the finest Slovene poetry was written by France Prešeren (1800-1849), and although some of his friends suggested he should also attempt to write a play, his closest achievement to drama was his epic poem Krst pri Savici (Baptism at the Savica River, 1836), which is also often considered by literary historians as a predecessor of later Slovene dramatic literature. Although many Slovene authors who wrote their works in the nineteenth century knew Shakespeare´s plays, they still found it easier to express themselves in prose. The first Slovene novel is Josip Jurčič´s Deseti brat (The Tenth Brother), which was published in 1866, ten years earlier than his play Tugomer (Tugomer). However,Jurčič´s tragedy Tugomer was artistically very much improved by the adaptation made by Fran Levstik, whose text has been since considered as the ˝true˝ version of this play. Further editions and adaptations of this play definitely prove that several Slovene authors have found the subject-matter of this play worthy of new interpretations. By the end of the nineteenth century the list of Slovene translators of Shakespeare´s plays (most of them chose only some acts or scenes) was quite long. But it was only in 1899, when Ivan Cankar´s translation of Hamlet appeared on stage of the Slovene National Theatre

09.05.2014