Shakespeare and the Coconuts. Natasha Distiller
Distiller examines Shakespeare’s place in South Africa’s education and culture without universalising the contradictory forces that have made that position controversial and is thus able to provide both a fascinating account of current South African culture and a precise analytical model with which to challenge the concept of a single ‘global’ or ‘post-colonial’ Shakespeare.
Kate McLuskie, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies, The Shakespeare Institute
Natasha Distiller, of all scholars working on ‘Shakespeare’ and South Africa, asks the most interesting questions. She pushes us to think about our relationships not only to the oeuvre of a Renaissance poet-playwright, but to race, discourses of authenticity, national identifications, pedagogy, the institutions of literature in the country, and the place of South Africa in the global mediascape.
Andrew van der Vlies, Queen Mary, University of London
... a fascinating book by a leading authority on Shakespeare in South Africa ... broad and wide ranging issues that go to the heart of debates about South African identity and politics.
Brian Willan, Hon. Senior Research Fellow, Rhodes University
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg
2001
Copyright © Natasha Distiller 2012
First published 2012
ISBN 978-1-86814-561-4 (print)
ISBN 978-1-86814-597-3 (epub)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Edited by Inga Norenius
Cover design and typesetting by Farm Design www.farmdesign.co.za
Printed and bound by Ultra Litho (Pty) Limited
Contents
Shakespeare in English, English in South Africa
‘Through Shakespeare’s Africa’: ‘Terror and murder’?
Tony’s Will: Titus Andronicus in South Africa, 1995
Begging the questions: Producing Shakespeare for post-apartheid South African schools
English and the African Renaissance
Acknowledgements
My work on Shakespeare and South Africa was first developed in South Africa, Shakespeare and Post-colonial Culture (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005).
I would like to gratefully acknowledge the anonymous peer reviewers for Wits University Press, whose rigorous engagement with the original version of this book helped to improve it immeasurably. I thank them for their time, input, knowledge, and collegiality.
Permission to publish reworked versions of the following journal articles is gratefully acknowledged:
Taylor and Francis Group for ‘The Mobile Inheritors of any Renaissance’ – English Studies in Africa 51.1 (2008): 138–144; ‘English and the African Renaissance’ – English Studies in Africa 47. 2 (2004): 109–124; ‘Begging the Questions: Shakespeare in Post-apartheid South Africa’ – Social Dynamics 35.1 (2009): 177–191.
University of Delaware Press for ‘“Through Shakespeare’s Africa”: “Terror and Murder?”’ – Shakespeare’s World/ World Shakespeares, eds Richard Fotheringham, Christa Jansohn, and R.S. White (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008), pp. 382–396.
Ashgate Publishing Group for ‘Tony’s Will: Titus Andronicus in South Africa 1995’ – Shakespearean International Yearbook, eds Graham Bradshaw, Tom Bishop and Laurence Wright (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 152–170.
Cambridge University Press for ‘Shakespeare and the Coconuts’ – Shakespeare Survey 62 (2009): 211–221.
Thanks to Stephen Francis and Rico Schacherl for the Madam & Eve cartoon – Mail & Guardian 30 November – 6 December 2007, p. 33.
Grateful thanks to Ingrid de Kok for permission to use her poem ‘Merchants in Venice’ which was first published in Terrestrial Things (Kwela Books and Snailpress, Cape Town, 2002) and later re-published in Seasonal Fires: new and selected poems (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2006).
My thanks to Jennifer Poole for her sterling research and editorial assistance, to Julie Miller and Roshan Cader at Wits University Press, and to Inga Norenius for her editing.
Introduction
Ingrid de Kok’s poem ‘Merchants in Venice’ addresses the relationship between rich, established Europe and its so-called high culture, and poor, entrepreneurial Africa. The poem offers ways to read the presence of Africans in this famous landscape. One of the poem’s subtexts speaks to Africans’ political, economic, and cultural rights, and the disavowal, refusal, or lack of their recognition. Ancient histories of exchange resonate with the globalised present, as the