Cover not available
Part of
Romeo and Juliet in European Culture
Edited by Juan F. Cerdá, Dirk Delabastita and Keith Gregor
[Shakespeare in European Culture 1] 2017
► pp. 197–226

Chapter 10
“Unveiling” Romeo and Juliet in Spain

Translation, performance and censorship

| University of León

This paper surveys the reception of Romeo and Juliet in Franco’s Spain by showing the evolution of the tragedy on the Spanish stages. Thanks to the censorship material kept at the Archivo General de la Administración, I have carried out an analysis of different productions that reveals that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is not a stable entity but a web of translations, adaptations and appropriations reflecting the political, social and cultural forces at work at the time. Besides, this work brings to light how the performance of the play evolved from a poetic and chaste love story during the first years of the dictatorship to a more sexual and tasteless comedy framed in the context of the destape (unveiling) period, thus entering the realm of lowbrow culture and becoming a Shakespop product.

Keywords: Romeo and Juliet , Franco’s Spain, censorship, performance, adaptation, translation, appropriation
Article outline
  • A poetic and chaste love story in the eyes of Francoism
  • “What’s in a name?” Just a name, only a name …
  • The tragedy becomes a comedy
  • And then came the destape
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sec.1.11ban
References
Alonso Tejada, Luis
1977 La represión sexual en la España de Franco. Madrid: Caralt.Google Scholar
Álvarez Chillida, Gonzalo
1996 José María Pemán, pensamiento y trayectoria de un monárquico (1897–1941). Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz.Google Scholar
Da Cunha Resende, Aimara
2005 “Text, Context, and Audience: Two Versions of Romeo and Juliet in Brazilian Popular Culture.” In Kliman and Santos 2005, 270–289.Google Scholar
de Paco, Mariano
1989 “El grupo ‘Arte Nuevo’ y el teatro español de postguerra.” Estudios Románicos 5: 1.065–1.078.Google Scholar
Desmet, Christy
2014 “Recognizing Shakespeare, Rethinking Fidelity: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Appropriation.” In Huang and Rivlin 2014, 41–57.Google Scholar
Desmet, Christy, and Sawyer, Robert
eds. 1999 Shakespeare and Appropriation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischlin, Daniel, and Mark Fortier
eds. 2000 Adaptations of Shakespeare. A Critical Anthology of Plays from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gregor, Keith
2010 Shakespeare in the Spanish Theatre: 1772 to the Present. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Huang, Alexa, and Elizabeth Rivlin
eds. 2014 Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hutcheon, Linda
2006 A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kidnie, Margaret Jane
2009 Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kliman, Bernice W., and Rick J. Santos
eds. 2005 Latin American Shakespeares. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.Google Scholar
Lanier, Douglas
2002 Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2014 “Shakespearean Rhizomatics: Adaptation, Ethics, Value.” In Huang and Rivlin 2014, 21–40.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Courtney
2010 Screen Adaptations: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The Relationship between Text and Film. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Llera, José Antonio
2003 El humor verbal y visual de “La Codorniz.” Madrid: CSIC.Google Scholar
Modenessi, Alfredo Michel
2005 “Cantinflas’s Romeo and Juliet: The Rogue and Will.” In Kliman and Santos 2005, 219–241.Google Scholar
O’Connor, John
2003 Shakespearean Afterlives. Ten Characters with a Life of their Own. Cambridge: Iconbooks.Google Scholar
Pemán, José María
1935 Julieta y Romeo. Comedieta en prosa. Madrid: Juan Manuel Monte.Google Scholar
Racz, Gregary J.
2005 “Strategies of Deletion in Pablo Neruda’s Romeo and Juliet .” In Kliman and Santos 2005, 71–91.Google Scholar
Sanders, Julie
2006 Adaptation and Appropriation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Torres Nebrera, Gregorio
2010 “ Romeo y Julieta a la española: Lope, Rojas Zorrilla y otros autores.” Anuario de Estudios Filológicos XXXIII: 361–383.Google Scholar
Toury, Gideon
1995 Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Rayner, Francesca
2021. The story of what might have been: Interrogating Romeo and Juliet under the Portuguese dictatorship. Sederi :31 ► pp. 73 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.