400 YEARS SHAKESPEARE 1616-2016


The School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
organizes an

International Symposium

SHAKESPEARE’S RELATIONSHIP TO CLASSICAL AND MODERN GREECE

22 October 2016

Amphitheatre of The Tellogleion Arts Foundation
158A Agiou Demetriou Street Thessaloniki
 

The purpose of the Symposium will be twofold: (1) to consider Shakespeare’s relationship to ancient Greek authors and dramatists within the wider context of the reception of the Greek Classics in the Renaissance, and (2) to discuss Shakespeare’s reception in modern Greece.

With regard to the first topic, the overall question to be attempted is: what kind of Greek sources did Shakespeare use and how did he transform them in his imagination? We know a great deal about Shakespeare’s re-working of Latin sources and his indebtedness to Roman authors (Ovid, Virgil, Seneca and many others), but we are on much less certain ground about his Greek side. Without getting entangled in the perennial debate about Shakespeare’s “Small Latine and lesse Greeke,” can we determine the way that Greek antiquity may have influenced his works? Today new theoretical approaches that focus on the processes of reception and the formation of intertextualities may be more fruitful and illuminating than previous emphases on direct borrowings. Shakespeare’s relationship to Greek antiquity is important to scholars because it sheds light on the dialogue between chronologically and geographically remote cultures as well as on the processes of cultural formation and imaginative transformation. It is important to modern Greeks in so far as it reveals the extent of their ancestors’ influence on a Renaissance dramatist who has held and still holds sway on the theatrical stages around the globe.

With regard to the second topic—Shakespeare’s reception in modern Greece—the symposium will attempt to present a small but representative sample of what modern Greeks have done with Shakespeare: how they have appropriated and re-created his works through literary translation and theatrical representation. Some attention will be paid to the degree of Shakespeare’s assimilation in the modern Greek culture and his comparative presence on the Greek stage, alongside the ancient Greek dramatists.

Organizing Committee

Interpretation by the graduates of the Joint Postgraduate Studies Program in Conference Interpreting and Translation

Theatrical performance

The theatrical piece presented at the end of the symposium, an excerpt from the final scene of Henry V, is a collaboration between the English Department of the School of Philosophy, AUTh, and the Drama School of NTNG, with student-actors from both schools. (Tina Krontiris wrote the prologue, taught and edited the English text. Yiannis Rigas edited the Greek text, taught the roles, and directed the entire performance.)

Participating student-actors from the School of English:

Participating student-actors from the Drama School of NTNG: