I Did My Best
The above cartoon drawing is an avatar I created using face your manga, a website that claims to allow users to create avatars that resemble the features of manga characters. I think they used the word "manga" to draw people in, but the options resemble the characteristics of a normal cartoon more than the common characteristics of a manga character. The eyes should be bigger and at sharper angles, and the items offered should involve martial weapons rather than a bucket of popcorn, a hand flipping off the onlooker, and a peace sign (although the peace sign is still widely used in Japan). Still, I wanted to give you a visual of how much I have put myself into this project. Don't ask about the eye patch.
Thesis
With all of the options of usable modern media, manga is a legitimate source for presenting Shakespeare because the themes within Shakespeare's plays can be understood by the Japanese and nearly any other culture, it can be utilized as a teaching tool, and the art compliments the story without complicating it.
Does it Translate?
The first step towards legitimatizing manga as Shakespeare worthy is to see if members of the Japanese culture can understand anything that Shakespeare writes about. In my first hub post, I compare key elements of Japanese culture with that of the Elizabethan culture. Not only did I find that many of the elements matched (for instance chivalry with bushido), but I also concluded that many of Shakespeare's stories have universal themes that deal with the human condition. A good example of this is family feuds and immature romance.
Manga can Teach
In my post titled Manga and the Mind, I cited an article that went over the benefits of using manga to fuel the imagination of students and help them visualize Shakespeare with greater ease. The article went on to justify manga as a unique literary form.
The Literary Criticism
This affect that the visual element of manga has on the mind can be linked with my choice of literary criticism: psychoanalytical criticism. I have several posts regarding my interaction with a psychologist over Shakespeare, with the most prevalent being called "Getting Into Hamlet's Head".
My Experiment
In my post Manga Hub III, I explain the layout of my experiment. I wanted to find out if the pictures in a manga could speak for themselves and convey a Shakespearean scene without the Shakespearean language to give it away. In order to do this, I blanked out the speech in two pages of manga, one from a scene in Romeo and Juliet and another from Basilisk, a running manga series. The large majority of the class was able to recognize that the Romeo and Juliet page was the correct choice. I gave away that one of the scenes was from the fight scene in Romeo and Juliet, which might have given too much away. But, the class recognized what I thought they would: young characters, intense facials, and dueling. I take this to mean that the foreign look to manga does not detract from its ability to convey emotion and violence to any audience.
Conclusions
Due to the ability of the Japanese (and much of the world) to understand the material, the benefits of manga's teaching possibilities, and the complimentary role the art plays in conveying the essence of the plays, I deem manga a suitable genre to utilize in presenting Shakespearean plays. This is not to say that the genre does not add its own flare to the original stories. Take the anime (a Japanese cartoon style that resembles manga) Romeo x Juliet.
Here we see a floating New Verona, horse dragons, Juliet dressing up as a man who dresses up as a vigilante, and huge sword fights. Though the story is lengthened and changed a bit, there are scenes from the play inserted directly into the anime, except they are sometimes backwards. For instance, it is Romeo's balcony that the famous balcony scene is given. Though I believe there are many wrong ways to insert Shakespeare into a foreign culture, it is remarkable to see how a nation took Shakespeare and made it into their own work. Though there are many non-authentic writers of manga, I believe that the style can be utilized to give both the Japanese and the rising generation a version of Shakespeare that they can better understand and relate to.
Thesis
With all of the options of usable modern media, manga is a legitimate source for presenting Shakespeare because the themes within Shakespeare's plays can be understood by the Japanese and nearly any other culture, it can be utilized as a teaching tool, and the art compliments the story without complicating it.
Does it Translate?
The first step towards legitimatizing manga as Shakespeare worthy is to see if members of the Japanese culture can understand anything that Shakespeare writes about. In my first hub post, I compare key elements of Japanese culture with that of the Elizabethan culture. Not only did I find that many of the elements matched (for instance chivalry with bushido), but I also concluded that many of Shakespeare's stories have universal themes that deal with the human condition. A good example of this is family feuds and immature romance.
Manga can Teach
In my post titled Manga and the Mind, I cited an article that went over the benefits of using manga to fuel the imagination of students and help them visualize Shakespeare with greater ease. The article went on to justify manga as a unique literary form.
The Literary Criticism
This affect that the visual element of manga has on the mind can be linked with my choice of literary criticism: psychoanalytical criticism. I have several posts regarding my interaction with a psychologist over Shakespeare, with the most prevalent being called "Getting Into Hamlet's Head".
My Experiment
In my post Manga Hub III, I explain the layout of my experiment. I wanted to find out if the pictures in a manga could speak for themselves and convey a Shakespearean scene without the Shakespearean language to give it away. In order to do this, I blanked out the speech in two pages of manga, one from a scene in Romeo and Juliet and another from Basilisk, a running manga series. The large majority of the class was able to recognize that the Romeo and Juliet page was the correct choice. I gave away that one of the scenes was from the fight scene in Romeo and Juliet, which might have given too much away. But, the class recognized what I thought they would: young characters, intense facials, and dueling. I take this to mean that the foreign look to manga does not detract from its ability to convey emotion and violence to any audience.
Conclusions
Due to the ability of the Japanese (and much of the world) to understand the material, the benefits of manga's teaching possibilities, and the complimentary role the art plays in conveying the essence of the plays, I deem manga a suitable genre to utilize in presenting Shakespearean plays. This is not to say that the genre does not add its own flare to the original stories. Take the anime (a Japanese cartoon style that resembles manga) Romeo x Juliet.
Here we see a floating New Verona, horse dragons, Juliet dressing up as a man who dresses up as a vigilante, and huge sword fights. Though the story is lengthened and changed a bit, there are scenes from the play inserted directly into the anime, except they are sometimes backwards. For instance, it is Romeo's balcony that the famous balcony scene is given. Though I believe there are many wrong ways to insert Shakespeare into a foreign culture, it is remarkable to see how a nation took Shakespeare and made it into their own work. Though there are many non-authentic writers of manga, I believe that the style can be utilized to give both the Japanese and the rising generation a version of Shakespeare that they can better understand and relate to.
0 comments:
Post a Comment