After you read "Shakespeare in the Bush," discuss one or more of the following questions.
What assumptions did the author test out in the bush?
Were these assumptions verified? Why or Why not?
Was it possible for the author to translate the concepts and emotions of Shakespeare’s world into the African language and context to render the story understandable to them?
Or did her translation totally alter it?
Shakespeare in the Bush:
ReplyDeleteThe author made the assumption that such a widespread story by such a beloved author as Shakespeare would be interpreted the same no matter what culture it was told in. The problem was that Hamlet involves family dynamics and customs that do not exist in the tribal community. She had the idea that the human emotions that Shakespeare evokes would translate flawlessly through cultures, however because she had to dissect and change words to match translations, a lot of the meaning was lost. It never proved her point because she had to alter the story to connect with the audience and so how Shakespeare worded things was lost. Plus, the story that Shakespeare was presenting was part of English culture, where things like ghosts can exist but in Africa, life after death doesn't happen or isn't believed in so this story lost a lot of its power and meaning.
The author exhibited her naive realism by proclaiming that humans everywhere share similar behaviors, based in what she believed were primal emotions. Her implicit assumption was that the truths conveyed in the play, Hamlet, were universal. The author also assumed that the native people would teach her their customs with little persuasion. She maintained the belief that hamlet had only one all encompassing interpretation.
ReplyDeleteAt the initiation of the story, Bohannan runs into many difficulties in explaining European customs, beliefs, and relationships. Power in the bushmen societies is distributed by chiefs, in a stark contrast to the kings and queens of Europe. Relationships between family members were different as well; the bushmen praised Claudius' marriage to his brothers wife, as this is not taboo in their society. This removed from them the sense of disgust and outrage that propelled hamlet to his madness. Bohannan assumed that the bushmen would share superstitions that existed in the shakespearian folklore. She also misjudged the difficulties of the language barrier between english and the native dialect. The bushmen also have a more animalistic view of the world. The bushmen, she later discovered, interpreted all the forces of the natural world to be caused by spirits. This confused Ophelia's madness and subsequent suicide as an act of a witch-doctor.
Ultimately, the story was reduced to the violent climax. The bushmen were entertained, but believed Bohannan herself to be a bit confused by the story. They expressed gentle pity. Bohannan had bonded with the bushmen by telling them "Hamlet", though not in the way she had expected.
West African cultures are extremely different than the the English culture when 'Hamlet' was written. Ideas of how one should live their life and how things work are different in secluded villages. The idea of having more than one wife in the United States seems completely bogus. While the narrator was trying to explain the concept of a ghost, the elders were confused. They were angered with the idea that a dead person could walk and talk. Beliefs and customs are different everywhere you go. Just because something is acceptable in one place does not make it in another.
ReplyDeleteTranslations are not always possible from one language to another. Words are compared to others to try to make sense, but many times there is a whole different meaning unknown to others.
In all, I would say that although a great effort was made to translate Hamlet, the problem was that the author did not consider more than linguistic differences. Even (maybe even especially, since we have better resources) today a translation of any work, whether its Shakespeare or Harry Potter, has to consider cultural and semantic dissonance as well. The author failed in that aspect, but brings up the question... If she'd gone completely all out and translated Hamlet in a way that a West African tribe would understand, would the power of the story really have been lost because it wasn't presented in the way an English audience would enjoy? Is it more important to stay true to the roots or create something universal or accessible to a new group of people?
ReplyDeleteThe author assumed that Hamlet contained a lot of emotions and concepts that should be worldwide and universally known. While it is true that all humans have the same emotions and tend to understand a lot of similar situations worldwide, the story of Hamlet did not come off quite as understandable as the author wanted it to.
ReplyDeleteThe author could not translate the concepts and emotions correctly to the elders because the of the different customs and beliefs in both of the worlds. (Hamlets and the Tivs) Although some points came across to the elders (like, a lot of them fell between the cracks. For example, the elders believe that great chiefs should have many wives, while more Western countries believe you should only have one.
So, in the end, that story was not Hamlet anymore but a version the elders had created by stepping in every few moments to correct the author of her "mistakes" she was making while trying to tell the tale. And while they found it entertaining, it was not the same.
The author of this story assumed that the tribe in Africa would understand Hamlet because of it's "universal themes". She figured that these would transcend through their culture if she could explain it well enough. In the end, the tribe thought that she didn't know the story well enough, when in reality, they changed the meaning of Hamlet because of what they have learned in their culture. This shows that what people learn in their culture makes it difficult to translate emotions and themes if these are conflicting with what they have learned. This shows a good example of naive realism.
ReplyDeleteUnaltered tales of Shakespeare will undoubtedly lose some emotional significance when told to more remote cultures. Shakespeare relies heavily on the customs of Europe during the 1500’s, and though it may not seem so far fetched for us to comprehend in America even 500 years later, the tales of trials and tribulations of a wealthy Danish prince will seem quite abstract and bizarre to a Western African culture. While a thorough translation could be made to spell out everything clearly and elaborate on the social constructs of the stories, I believe the life experiences and social construct of the tribesman would still create a distance from the emotional impact Shakespeare has on more globally shared cultures. If the story were to be altered to be more fitting to the tribe, it would no longer be Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a political critic, satirist, and a romantic, and every one of those traits manifested directly from his life experiences living in a monarchy ruled Europe.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not impossible to share the literary genius of Shakespeare to remote cultures, but it would require a substantial amount of education to the individual hearing it so they could really be immersed and fully comprehend the rich substance of the stories. The same goes for anyone reading or hearing stories from another culture, it doesn’t have much of a meaning or depth if we don’t understand the culture itself.
Question 1:
ReplyDeleteLaura Bohannan had several assumptions about her test that proved very wrong. She believed in a universal moral slate and that all cultures would interpret the same ideas of right wrong. She believed that a tribe who had never heard of the western author William Shakespeare could interptret "Hamlet" in the same way our society and a majority of the world does because of some ideal of universal truth.
The Tiv culture is far different from our own and did not understand alot of the nuances in the story such as the western heirachy in comparison to their own tribal heirachy. It wasn't just the minute details they interpreted differently, it was the overall message. Some of the Tiv elders didn't view Hamlet as the hero we in western society do and they didn't understand his actions as heroic. So in the end, Laura Bohannan went into a situatin with false expectations and learned that different cultures view lessons fo right and wrong based on their own societies and not some universal truth.
As a brief comment on the second question, what made Shakespeare's writings as renowed as they are is the style in which he wrote, the diction and syntax with which he put his stories together. This is impossible to translate into a non-romance languange and therefore impossible to fully understand the works of shakespeare.
While in the bush, Bohannan operated under the assumption that by putting Shakespeare's Hamlet in an African setting that they would be able to understand and relate to the story in the same way that she does. She tested the theory that some stories are universal in their meanings, this is a prime example of naive realism. This tribe has already formed their opinions and beliefs about what is right, wrong, how family matters should be handled, even how witches and ghost are to be treated before they had even heard the story. In a sense, it did not matter how she told the story so much as how the story was told back to her. By the old men interrupting and correcting her telling of the story, Bohannan was able to learn even more about the tribe and the small nuances that make up the tacit knowledge of their culture.
ReplyDeleteSo, Bohannan's assumptions were proven incorrect and the universalness of Hamlet did not translate to these people. The only way these people could relate to the story was to correct in with their own cultural experiences and knowledge of what is right and wrong.
The Tiv people of West Africa who had never read Hamlet who interpreted the story have a completely different culture than ours as Americans. The details that we see and read in popular literature are examined to our best of knowledge based on the traditions and the ways we live our lives on an every day basis. The Tiv people see their priorities and life lessons according to what they know and what they have grown up with. Their interpretation of Hamlet proved a much different interpretation than ours; discrepencies and confusion provided a wake up call to Bohannon making her realize that just because she, in her own culture saw the story one way inside and out, did not mean other cultures would have the same take on it, which had never crossed my mind.
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