David Pouliquen

Discipline

Translation Studies, Shakespeare Studies

Thèmes de recherche

The Operatic Adaptations of Shakespeare's Tragedies

My current research examines the operatic adaptation of Shakespearean tragedy. It tackles the problem of how to reconcile the source work with the target work. Antoine Berman justly highlights the sufferings occasioned by translation and stresses that no reflections can escape this. Following A. Berman’s lead, I started looking for the postulated scars left on the body of the target work by this transformation. Locating and labelling them facilitate the listing of precisely all the various translational operations, which are similar to real surgeries pragmatically speaking, in the particular case of the translation of Elizabethan or Jacobean dramas into Italian or French Romantic operas. We should, moreover, observe at first the forces that come into play in the protean relationship between the two works, only seemingly motionless, before subsequently theorizing about their dynamics. I postulate that the adapted work is in a state of perpetual activity and its surface, as a result, is subject to continuous undulations, or even shaking. Proceeding from this basic premise, we will try to discover the origins of a hypothetical ‘volcanism of adaptation’, asking ourselves, on the one hand, how the catalytic process would work and, on the other hand, considering the reasons for such an effervescence through experimental procedure. It will mainly involve manipulating ‘musico-gestural and textual’ samples. Finally, the semiotic magmatism of drama and opera, seen at the same time as communicating vessels and delimited art forms, necessitates the application of an interdisciplinary and comparative approach. The primary purpose of my work, for it is a leap forward in the loose conglomeration of the studies of musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays, is to identify the key parameters for describing the interactions between the ‘departure work’ and the ‘arrival work’. Then, to measure the impact that an artistic operator, seen as a theatre practitioner, can have on the systemic unity of the two works by moving the cursors of the proposed parameterization. I put forward the hypothesis that adaptation, as an autonomous work of art, or even an art form, is located in the space or interval between the source work and the target work. My present research is meant to be a manifesto in favour of what I call ‘Art Tectonics’—that is, a reflection of ‘the study of the processes by which the earth’s crust has attained its structure’—a real paradigm shift which merges intertextuality with the mechanics of adaptation, and hence offers great prospects. A new, institutionalizable field of study has begun to spring up.

Keywords:  Traduction et traductologie, Études shakespeariennes, Théâtre élisabéthain et jacobéen, Renaissance anglaise, Masque et opéra, Poésie et musique, Technique vocale, Classicisme et romantisme, Mise en scène

 

CV

Dr David Pouliquen

MA, PhD (Rennes 2 & Unimore)

Qualifié aux fonctions de Maître de conférences en Études anglophones, section 11 du CNU

Rapporteurs :  Mmes les Professeurs Sarah HATCHUEL, Présidente de la Société française Shakespeare, et Catherine LISAK (Bordeaux Montaigne)

 

• Courriel : david.pouliquen @ univ-angers.fr (david.pouliquen @ univ-angers.fr)