“Determined to prove a villain”: Disability, translation, and the narratives of evil in Shakespeare’s Richard III
Abstract
Shakespeare’s play Richard III represents a fascinating phenomenon from the perspective of critical disability studies. On the one hand, his portrayal stands at the root of the much-criticised link between evil intentions and a physical deformity; on the other, the play allows Richard to reclaim some of the agency of his own corporeality, as he uses his body to gain his political goals. Translations of this play inevitably mirror contemporary views of non-normative bodies, and the two Slovak versions of the play marking the immediate aftermath of World War II and the last years of the communist rule in former Czechoslovakia provide an ideal ground for observing these shifts against the backdrop of significant sociopolitical changes. This article explores how the subtle nuances in individual translated versions reshape Richard’s image, and ultimately highlights the changing historical narratives of disability translated for different generations of Slovak readers and theatregoers.
Keywords:
Publication history
Table of contents
The newest James Bond movie is coming into cinemas as I am finalising this article, a fact that came to my attention through the deluge of disappointed voices from disability activists on my social media feeds. No Time To Die (Fukunaga 2021) features not one but two villains with prominent facial disfigurements, which is a frustrating choice after decades of criticism aimed at the franchise’s persistent association of villains with disabilities. Although the producers cite their adherence to the original Ian Fleming novels as their reason for using the disfigured villain trope (Lambie 2012), disability activist Jen Campbell (2021) points to the fact that the Bond movies have in recent years been visibly addressing some of the horrendous instances of misogyny included in the original books, without apparently compromising the Fleming heritage. Some traditions are simply not worth breaking, no matter how much harm they perpetrate — or perhaps, the disfigured villain is a too convenient and lucrative trope to give up on just yet.
References
Barker, Clare, and Stuart Murray
eds. 2019 The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buckley, Richard, Mathew Morris, Jo Appleby, Turi King, Deirdre O’Sullivan, and Lin Foxhall
2013 “ ‘The King in the Car Park’: New Light on the Death and Burial of Richard III in the Grey Friars Church, Leicester, in 1485.” Antiquity 87 (336): 519–538. 
Bžochová-Wild, Jana
2014 “ ‘Now, [...] What Is Your Text?’ Translating & Publishing Shakespeare in Slovak.” In “In Double Trust”: Shakespeare in Central Europe, edited by Jana Bžochová-Wild, 73–104. Bratislava: Vysoká škola múzických umení.
Campbell, Jen
2021 “Bond Villains with Disfigurements are Harmful for People Like Me.” Refinery 29, October 18, 2021. https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/james-bond-villains-facial-disfigurements-disabilities
Changing Faces Volunteer Campaigners
2021 “Our Open Letter To Bond Producers.” Changing Faces, September 28, 2021. https://www.changingfaces.org.uk/news/open-letter-to-bond-producers/
Chakravarty, Radha
2019 “A Different Idiom: Translation and Disability.” In Disability in Translation: The Indian Experience, edited by Someshwar Sati and G. J. V. Prasad, 25–36. London: Routledge.
Charnes, Linda
1993 Notorious Identity: Materializing the Subject in Shakespeare. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Davis, Lennard J.
1995 Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body. London: Verso.
Dobson, Michael, and Stanley Wells
2015 The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Filipová, Marta
2007 “A Communist Image of the Hussites: Representations and Analogies.” In Menas Ir Politika: Rytų Europos Atvejai [Art and politics: Case-studies from Eastern Europe], edited by Vytautas Levandauskas, 53–60. Kaunas: Vytauto Didžiojo Universiteto Leidykla.
Fukunaga, Cary Joji
dir. 2021 No Time To Die. Universal Pictures.
Garber, Marjorie
2010 Shakespeare’s Ghost Writers: Literature as Uncanny Causality. Abingdon: Routledge.
Gombár, Zsófia
2018 “Literary Censorship and Homosexuality in Kádár-Regime Hungary and Estado Novo Portugal.” In Queering Translation, Translating the Queer: Theory, Practice, Activism, edited by Brian James Baer and Klaus Kaindl, 144–156. New York: Routledge.
Hayes, Peter L.
1971 The Limping Hero: Grotesques in Literature. New York: New York University Press.
Henschel, Frank, and Victoria Shmidt
2019 “Special Education in Czechoslovakia between 1939 and 1989: Toward Multilevel Hierarchy of Defectivity.” In The Politics of Disability in Interwar and Socialist Czechoslovakia: Segregating in the Name of the Nation, edited by Victoria Shmidt, 109–144. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Hermans, Theo
2012 “Response to Translation as an Approach to History.” Translation Studies 5 (2): 242–245.
Hobgood, Allison P.
2015 “Teeth Before Eyes: Impairment and Invisibility in Shakespeare’s Richard III.” In Disability, Health, and Happiness in the Shakespearean Body, edited Sujata Iyengar, 23–40. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hobgood, Allison P., and David Houston Wood
2019 “Early Modern Literature and Disability Studies.” In The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability, edited by Clare Barker and Stuart Murray, 32–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holland, Daniel
2003 “Grass Roots Promotion of Community Health and Human Rights for People with Disabilities in Post-Communist Central Europe: A Profile of the Slovak Republic.” Disability and Society 18 (2): 133–143.
Hruboň, Anton
2021 “Creating the Paradigm of ‘New Nation’: Eugenic Thinking and the Culture of Racial-Hygiene in the Slovak State.” Fascism 10 (2): 275–297.
Johns, Geoffrey A.
2015 “A ‘Grievous Burthen’: Richard III and the Legacy of Monstrous Birth.” In Disability, Health, and Happiness in the Shakespearean Body, edited by Sujata Iyengar, 41–57. Abingdon: Routledge.
Jowett, John
ed. 2000 Richard III — The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
JULS
n.d. “Kalika.” Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences]. https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk/?w=kalika&s=exact&c=h1b4&cs=&d=kssj4&d=psp&d=ogs&d=sssj&d=orter&d=scs&d=sss&d=peciar&d=ssn&d=hssj&d=bernolak&d=noundb&d=orient&d=locutio&d=obce&d=priezviska&d=un&d=pskcs&d=psken#
Kostihová, Marcela
2013 “Richard Recast: Renaissance Disability in a Postcommunist Culture.” In Recovering Disability in Early Modern England, edited by Allison P. Hobgood and David Houston Wood, 136–149. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Lambie, Ryan
2012 “Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson Interview: Producing Skyfall.” Den of Geeks, October 24, 2012. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/barbara-broccoli-and-michael-g-wilson-interview-producing-skyfall/
McRuer, Robert
2011 “Fuck the Disabled: The Prequel.” In Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon, 294–301. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mitchell, David T., and Sharon L. Snyder
2000 Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
More, Thomas
1557 The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, Sometyme Lorde Chauncellour of England, Wrytten by Him in the Englysh Tonge. London: John Cawod, John Waly and Richard Tottell.
More, Thomas, and George M. Logan
2005 The History of King Richard the Third: A Reading Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Moulton, Ian Frederick
1996 “ ‘A Monster Great Deformed’: The Unruly Masculinity of Richard III.” Shakespeare Quarterly 47 (3): 251–268.
Národní pokladnice
2020 “Milovaný Žižka Na Nenáviděné Bankovce [Beloved Žižka on a hated banknote].” https://www.narodnipokladnice.cz/numismaticke-novinky/383-milovany-zizka-na-nenavidene-bankovce
OED Online
Penman, Sharon Kay
1982 The Sunne in Splendour. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Plasse, Marie A.
1995 “Corporeality and the Opening of Richard III.” In Entering the Maze: Shakespeare’s Art of Beginning, edited by Robert F. Wilson Jr, 11–26. New York: Peter Lang.
Pym, Anthony
1998 Method in Translation History. London: Routledge.
Rundle, Christopher
2011 “History through a Translation Perspective.” In Between Cultures and Texts. Itineraries in Translation History/Entre Les Cultures et Les Textes. Itinéraires En Histoire de La Traduction, edited by Antoine Chalvin, Anne Lange, and Daniele Monticelli, 33–43. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
2012 “Translation as an Approach to History.” Translation Studies 5 (2): 232–240.
ed. 2021a The Routledge Handbook of Translation History. Abingdon: Routledge.
2021b “Introduction: The Historiography of Translation and Interpreting.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation History, edited by Christopher Rundle, xviii–xxvi. Abingdon: Routledge.
Sati, Someshwar, and G. J. V. Prasad
2019 Disability in Translation: The Indian Experience. Abingdon: Routledge.
Schaap Williams, Katherine
2009 “Enabling Richard: The Rhetoric of Disability in Richard III.” Disability Studies Quarterly 29 (4).
Shakespeare, William
1948 Richard III. Translated by Emil Boleslav Lukáč. Bratislava: Vedecké a umelecké nakladateľstvo Dr. J. Orlovského.
1975 Kráľ Ján [King John]. Translated by Eduard Castiglione and Ivan Mojík. Bratislava: Tatran.
1985 Richard III. Translated by Jozef Kot. Bratislava: Tatran.
1989 Historické Hry [Historical plays]. Translated by Jozef Kot. Bratislava: Tatran.
1999 King Henry VI Part 2 (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series), edited by Ronald Knowles. London: Bloomsbury.
2000 King Henry VI Part 1 (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series), edited by Edward Burns. London: Bloomsbury.
2001 King Henry VI Part 3 (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series), edited by John D. Cox and Eric Rasmussen. London: Bloomsbury.
2009 King Richard III: Third Series (Arden Shakespeare), edited by James R. Siemon. London: Bloomsbury.
2016 Hamlet: Revised Edition (The Arden Shakespeare Third Series), edited by Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor, David Scott Kastan, H. R. Woudhuysen, and Richard Proudfoot. London: Bloomsbury.
2018 Richard III. Translated by Jozef Kot. Bratislava: Ikar.
Shmidt, Victoria
2019 The Politics of Disability in Interwar and Socialist Czechoslovakia: Segregating in the Name of the Nation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Shmidt, Victoria, and Karel Pančocha
2019 “The Discourse of Disability: A Noah’s Ark for the New Nation?” In The Politics of Disability in Interwar and Socialist Czechoslovakia: Segregating in the Name of the Nation, edited by Victoria Shmidt, 61–79. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Siemon, James R.
ed. 2009 King Richard III (The Arden Shakespeare). London: Bloomsbury.
Šimko, Ján
1951 “Shakespeare in Slovakia.” In Shakespeare Survey, edited by Allardyce Nicoll, 109–116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Šimůnek, Michal V.
2012 “Pro et Contra: Debaty o Zavedení Tzv. Eugenické Sterilizace v Československu, 1933–1938 [Pro et contra: Debates about the implementation of the so-called eugenic sterilization in Czechoslovakia].” Speciální pedagogika 22 (3): 224–240.
Snem Slovenskej Krajiny
1939 “Záznam o 2. Schôdzke Snemu Slovenskej Krajiny v Bratislave [Minutes from the 2nd Meeting of the National Assembly of the Land of Slovakia in Bratislava].” https://www.nrsr.sk/dl/Browser/Document?documentId=178717
Sontag, Susan
1977 Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Spišiaková, Eva
2021 “Disability in Translation.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Health, edited by Şebnem Susam-Sarajeva and Eva Spišiaková, 300–313. Abingdon: Routledge.
Tey, Josephine
1951 The Daughter of Time. London: Peter Davies.
The Richard III Society
n.d. “About us.” https://richardiii.net/about/
Titzl, Boris
2005 “Politika Totalitního Režimu Vůči Zdravotně Postiženým Občanům [Politics of the totalitarian regime towards citizens with disabilities].” In K Problémům Menšin v Československu v Letech 1945–1989 [
On the problems of minorities in Czechoslovakia in 1945–1989
], edited by Helena Nosková, 21–61. Prague: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR.
Torrey, Michael
2000 “ ‘The Plain Devil and Dissembling Looks’: Ambivalent Physiognomy and Shakespeare’s Richard III.” English Literary Renaissance 30 (2): 123–153.
Toury, Gideon
1995 Descriptive Translation Studies — and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
UNESCO Statistics
n.d. “Index Translationum.” http://www.unesco.org/xtrans/bsstatexp.aspx?crit1L=5&nTyp=min&topN=50000
Vilikovský, Ján
2014 Shakespeare u Nás [Our Shakespeare]. Bratislava: Slovart.
Wynn, K. H.
2001 “Disability in Bible Translation.” The Bible Translator 52 (4): 402–414.