Imitation and Adaptation: A Meeting of Minds

Abstract

The focus of this collaborative paper is a form of creative collaboration: translations and adaptations across distinct historical periods and cultural contexts. The paper draws upon Edward H. Friedman's experience as an adaptor and translator, and both participants' research and scholarly work. The paper focuses on the choices made by adaptors in considering the time, place and contexts of the original while bearing in mind the exigencies and the sensibilities of the present. There is no doubt that the practice of imitatio in the Early Modern period and current practices of spin-offs and remakes differ significantly; however, this project reflects upon what Early Modernists can learn from the contemporary adaptations and stagings of the texts we study and teach. This question was central to Emilie Bergmann’s recent cross-cultural seminar on Renaissance and Baroque imitatio and centuries of translations and adaptations into French prose and theatre (Lesage and Molière) and Italian opera (Don Giovanni) in the eighteenth century, and recent English and Spanish spin-offs. The participants' specific focus is on Friedman's own adaptations of Lope de Vega's La dama boba, Unamuno's Niebla and Cervantes' Don Quijote and El laberinto de amor, in dialogue with other recent adaptations of Spanish comedia: the Royal Shakespeare Company's version of Sor Juana's Los empeños de una casa, Octavio Solís' Dreamlandia and Man of the Flesh (versions, respectively, of La vida es sueño and El burlador de Sevilla).

Key words:

• collaboration
• translation
• adaptation
• Edward H. Friedman
• imitatio
• Miguel de Unamuno
• Miguel de Cervantes
• Sor Juana de la Cruz
• Octavio Solís

Notes

1 Marjorie Perloff, Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2012).

2 Thomas Greene, The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (New Haven: Yale U. P., 1982).

3 Ignacio Navarrete, Orphans of Petrarch: Poetry and Theory in the Spanish Renaissance (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1994).

4 Greene, The Light in Troy, 2.

5 Victoria Kahn, Rhetoric, Prudence, and Skepticism in the Renaissance (Ithaca: Cornell U. P., 1985), 11.

6 Anne J. Cruz, Imitación y transformación: el petrarquismo en la poesía de Boscán y Garcilaso de la Vega (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1988); Roland Greene, Post-Petrarchism: Origins and Innovations of the Western Lyric Sequence (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1991); Navarrete, Orphans of Petrarch; James Nicolopulos, The Poetics of Empire in the Indies: Prophecy and Imitation in ‘La Araucana’ and ‘Os Lusíadas’ (University Park: Pennsylvania State U. P., 2000).

7 See David Carnegie & Gary Taylor, The Quest for Cardenio: Shakespeare, Fletcher, Cervantes, and the Lost Play (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2012).

8 J. E. Varey & N. D. Shergold, Teatros y comedias en Madrid, 1651–1665: estudio y documentos (London: Tamesis, 1973); N. D. Shergold & J. E. Varey, Genealogía, origen y noticias de los comediantes de España (London: Tamesis, 1985); N. D. Shergold, Los corrales de comedias de Madrid: 1632–1745. Reparaciones y obras nuevas (London: Tamesis, 1989); José María Ruano de la Haza & John J. Allen, Los teatros comerciales del siglo XVII y la escenificación de la comedia (Madrid: Castalia, 1994); José María Ruano de la Haza, La puesta en escena en los teatros comerciales del Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Castalia, 2000).

9 Bárbara Mujica, ‘Golden Age/Early Modern Theatre: Comedia Studies at the End of the Century’, Hispania (USA), 82:3 (1999), 397–407.

10 Melveena McKendrick, ‘Representing Their Sex: Actresses in Seventeenth-Century Spain’, in Rhetoric and Reality in Early Modern Spain, ed. Richard Pym (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2006), 72–91; Mary Blythe Daniels, ‘Actresses or Saints? The Rhetorical (Mis)Representation of Francisca Baltasara de Los Reyes and María Calderón’, Kentucky Philological Review, 25 (2010), 59–64.

11 Bruce R. Burningham, Radical Theatricality: Jongleuresque Performance on the Early Spanish Stage (West Lafayette: Purdue U. P., 2007); Bruce R. Burningham, ‘An Apology for the Actorly: Maravall, Sor Juana, and the Economics of Jongleuresque Performance’, Bulletin of the Comediantes, 65:1 (2013), 131–54.

12 Jonathan Thacker, A Companion to Golden Age Theatre (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2007), 26.

13 S. Griswold Morley & Courtney Bruerton, ‘How Many Comedias Did Lope de Vega Write?’, Hispania (USA), 19:2 (1936), 217–34; S. Griswold Morley & Courtney Bruerton, The Chronology of Lope de Vega's ‘Comedias’ (London: Oxford U. P., 1940). See also Hugo Rennert & Américo Castro, Vida de Lope de Vega, 1562–1634 (Salamanca: Anaya, 1968).

14 See Brian Vickers, Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays (Oxford/New York: Oxford U. P., 2002).

15 Stephen Orgel, ‘What Is a Text?’, in Staging the Renaissance: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, ed. David Scott Kastan & Peter Stallybrass (New York/London: Routledge, 1991), 83–87 (pp. 84–85).

16 Ruano de la Haza & Allen, Los teatros comerciales, 46.

17 Thacker, A Companion to Golden Age Theatre, 26, n. 4.

18 Charles Aubrun, ‘Las mil y ochocientas comedias de Lope’, in Lope de Vega y los orígenes del teatro español, ed. Manuel Criado de Val (Madrid: EDI-6, 1981), 27–33 (p. 32).

19 Aubrun, ‘Las mil y ochocientas comedias de Lope’, 29.

20 Aubrun, ‘Las mil y ochocientas comedias de Lope’, 29.

21 Charles Aubrun. ‘Lope de Vega dramaturge’, BHS, LXI:3 (1984), 271–82 (p. 271).

22 Aubrun, ‘Las mil y ochocientas comedias de Lope’, 28.

23 Aubrun, ‘Las mil y ochocientas comedias de Lope’, 29–30.

24 Burningham, Radical Theatricality, 133.

25 Burningham, Radical Theatricality, 134–35.

26 Giannina Braschi, El imperio de los sueños (San Juan: Editorial de la Univ. de Puerto Rico, 1999), 229.

27 María Mercedes Carrión, “Geographies, (M)other Tongues and the Rôle of Translation in Giannina Braschi's El imperio de los sueños’, Studies in Twentieth Century Literature, 20:1 (1996), 167–91 (pp. 169–70).

28 Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, La novela pastoril española (Madrid: Akal, 1974).

29 Braschi, El imperio de los sueños, 179–80.

30 Edward H. Friedman, ‘The Quixotic Template in Contemporary American Theatre’, Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura, 30:2 (2015), 2–16.

31 Friedman, ‘The Quixotic Template’, 5.

32 Edward H. Friedman, Crossing the Line: A Quixotic Adventure in Two Acts (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2012), 12.

33 See, for example, Edward H. Friedman, ‘Reading Inscribed: Don Quixote and the Parameters of Fiction’, in On Cervantes: Essays for L. A. Murillo, ed. James A. Parr (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1991), 63–84 and by the same author, ‘Reading Redressed: Or, the Media Circuits of Don Quijote’, Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de Cultura y Literatura, 9:2 (1994), 38–51.

34 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, adapted by Octavio Solís from Book One of Don Quixote de la Mancha, official script of the 2009 production (Ashland: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 2009), 1.

35 El rufián dichoso, Act 2, vv. 1229–32, in Miguel de Cervantes, Teatro completo, ed., intro. & notas de Florencio Sevilla Arroyo & Antonio Rey Hazas (Barcelona: Planeta, 1987), 284–371 (p. 326).

36 Edward H. Friedman, ‘ “All I Have To Do Is Dream”: Practices of Deception in the Early Modern Spanish Sonnet’, Confluencia, 30:3 (2015), 98–116, and ‘Self-Examination and Re-Creation in Early Modern Spanish Poetry’, forthcoming in the homage volume for Professor Robert ter Horst, ed. Eleanor ter Horst et al. (Fair Lawn: Transformative Studies Institute, 2016); and Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Soneto 1’, in Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain, with English Prose Translations, intro. & ed. by Elias L. Rivers (Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, 1989), 34–35.

37 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote, ed. & notes by Tom Lathrop (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2012); Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda [pseud.], El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, que contiene su tercera salida y es la quinta parte de sus aventuras, ed., intro. & notas de Fernando García Salinero (Madrid: Castalia, 1987).

38 On ‘periphrastic realism’, see Edward H. Friedman, Cervantes in the Middle: Realism and Reality in the Spanish Novel from ‘Lazarillo de Tormes’ to ‘Niebla’ (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2006).

39 Miguel de Unamuno, Niebla, ed. Mario J. Valdés (Madrid: Cátedra, 2000); Mario Vargas Llosa, La tía Julia y el escribidor (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1977); David Lodge, Small World: An Academic Romance (New York: Penguin, 1995); Paul Auster, City of Glass (New York: Penguin, 1985); Javier Cercas, Soldados de Salamina (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2001); Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (New York: Samuel French, 2010); Woody Allen, dir., The Purple Rose of Cairo, screenplay by Woody Allen (Orion Pictures, 1985); Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion & Mitch Leigh, Man of La Mancha: A Musical Play (New York: Random House, 1966).

40 Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’, in Jorge Luis Borges: Collected Fictions, trans. Andrew Hurley (New York: Penguin, 1999), 88–95.

41 Robin Chapman, The Duchess’s Diary (London: Faber & Faber, 1985), Sancho’s Golden Age (London: Aris & Phillips, 2004) and Pasamonte’s Life (London: Aris & Phillips, 2005), collected in The Spanish Trilogy (Pontypridd: Book Now Publishers, 2015); Shakespeare’s Don Quixote (Pontypridd: Book Now Publishers, 2011); Jaime Manrique, Cervantes Street (New York: Akashic Books, 2013).

42 David Henry Hwang, Yellow Face (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2009); Bruce Norris, Clybourne Park (New York: Faber & Faber, 2011); Friedman, ‘The Quixotic Template’.

43 Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York/Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1973).

44 Lope de Vega, La dama boba, ed. Diego Marín (Madrid: Cátedra, 2006); Edward H. Friedman, Wit’s End: An Adaptation of Lope de Vega’s ‘La dama boba’ (New York: Peter Lang/Ibérica, 2000) (revised version by Edward Friedman & Jeffrey Ullom, The Mercurian, 4:3 [2013], 24–55); Edward H. Friedman, Into the Mist: A Play Based on Miguel de Unamuno’s ‘Niebla’ (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2011); Friedman, Crossing the Line: A Quixotic Adventure in Two Acts; Miguel de Cervantes, El laberinto de amor, in Teatro completo, ed. Sevilla Arroyo & Rey Hazas, 457–542; Edward H. Friedman, The Labyrinth of Love: Inspired by ‘El laberinto de amor’ by Miguel de Cervantes (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2013); Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza. Mudarse por mejorarse, ed. Manuel Sito Alba (Madrid: Ediciones Libertarias-Prodhufi, 1999); Edward H. Friedman, Trading Up: A Comedy of Manners (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2016).

45 Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, La verdad sospechosa, ed. José Montero Reguera (Madrid: Castalia, 1999).

46 In 2015, I published a poetry collection titled Quixotic Haiku: Poems and Notes (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta), which consists of 130 poems based on Don Quijote, in the Japanese haiku form (three verses of 5-7-5 syllables), with accompanying notes. The poems and notes follow the trajectory of the narrative, as a type of running commentary. The writing of the adaptation was taxing, pleasurable, and, appropriately, quixotic.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.