litvin on hamlet

The French Source of the EarliestSurviving Arabic Hamlet

MARGARET LITVIN

THE OLDEST EXTANT Hamlet in Arabic, the 1901 adaptation byTanyus �Abdu, is a musical with a happy ending. Like many earlyadaptations of classic literary works, �Abdu’s version has been ex-haustively criticized for infidelity and more recently rehabilitatedas a brilliant example of tailoring to the target culture’s values andneeds. Yet much of the distortion or adaptation attributed to �Abdu,it turns out, can be traced to his hitherto overlooked French source.This article identifies that source: an 1840s Hamlet adaptation byAlexandre Dumas pere. Presenting the �Abdu and Dumas texts to-gether, I ask why no one has made this little discovery before. Thisoversight leads me to question the two currently dominant modelsof international literary appropriation, which are both binary mod-els. I then propose the ‘‘global kaleidoscope’’ as a new approach tonon-Anglophone Shakespeare.

‘‘One can smile and smile’’

Several studies have surveyed the early Arabic reception ofShakespeare.1 Most compare successive translations; taking a teleo-logical view, they tell of a bumpily asymptotic evolution from the‘‘crude, ridiculous and inaccurate’’2 adaptations of the 1890stoward ever more faithful and readable Arabic translations. Eagerto distinguish themselves from their forebears, the literary-mindedauthors of these studies scold Arab translators for ‘‘misunderstand-ing’’ or ‘‘misrepresenting’’ important points in Shakespeare’s origi-nal. They either overlook or deplore Shakespeare’s earliestfunction in the Arab world: as script fodder for the Levantine immi-grant entrepreneurs seeking to fill seats in Egypt’s new theaters.

PAGE 133

133

................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:09 PS

134 MARGARET LITVIN

More recently, a few scholars have begun to apply the sociologi-cal insights of Pierre Bourdieu to the appropriation of Shakespearein Arabic. Their work has highlighted the movement from early,commercially driven uses of Shakespeare to later attempts to fostera hierarchy of aesthetic and political values independent of normalmarket forces. From this angle, it becomes more interesting to ex-amine the commercial and ideological contexts in which differentnotions of quality were developed and valorized, and less interest-ing to replicate one such standard—the ‘‘fidelity’’ paradigm—in as-sessing competing translations.3

The favorite exemplar for both groups—whipping boy for the for-mer, sociocultural phenomenon for the latter—is Tanyus �Abdu(1869–1926), a Lebanese immigrant to Egypt and the author of theearliest surviving Arabic Hamlet adaptation.4 Like many other Le-vantine immigrants, �Abdu made his living as a journalist andtranslator. He frequented literary and political salons in Alexandriaas he had done in Beirut, apparently joining a socialist politicalparty.5 He met and undertook various writing projects with otherSyrian-Lebanese expatriates, many of them Christian, Franco-phone, and opposed to Ottoman rule in the Levant. Among his ef-forts were a bimonthly magazine, al-Rawı (the narrator), and anewspaper, al-Sharq (the East), both of which serialized literature.

�Abdu was also extraordinarily prolific as a translator andadapter. Although his political sympathies were socialist, his ar-tistic genius lay in feeding the tastes of Egypt’s emerging bour-geoisie. He has accordingly been criticized as a mass producer, ahack whose inartistically simple language and naıve use of west-ern sources betrayed traditional Arabo-Islamic standards of liter-ary craftsmanship.6 He has become an ‘‘icon of infidelity’’;7 amonghis counterparts in Europe, perhaps only One Thousand and OneNights translators Antoine Galland and Sir Richard Burton haveprovoked comparable scholarly dismay. Critics have accused�Abdu of writing more than six hundred, sometimes seven hun-dred ‘‘Arabizations’’ of French and English works of fiction anddrama. With obvious pleasure, they repeat and embellish the leg-end that he

was perhaps the most irresponsible of all: according to writers and jour-nalists who knew him personally, �Abdu did not really translate butArabicized what he read. He never followed the original or tried to con-vey its meaning. He translated anywhere and everywhere, regardless of

PAGE 134................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:10 PS

The French Source of the Earliest Surviving Arabic Hamlet 135

his circumstances—in a coffeeshop, on a sidewalk, on a train, even onthe flat roof of his house. �Abdu was, if we may believe one contempo-rary description, a walking library . . . He carried with him sheets ofpaper in one pocket and a French novel in the other. He would thenread a few lines, put the novel back in his pocket, and begin to scratchin a fine script whatever he could remember of the few lines he hadread. He wrote all day long without striking out a word or rereading aline.8

�Abdu began his Hamlet translation in 1901 on the commissionof Syrian-born theater manager Iskandar Farah, owner of Cairo’s al-Tiyatru al-Mis.rı (Egyptian Theatre) and director of its troupe. Thetext was written for performance rather than reading, reflectingwhat Sameh Fekry Hanna has called ‘‘the doxa of early dramatranslation in Egypt,’’ namely ‘‘producing translations to be per-formed by singers-cum-actors for an audience for whom singingmade good theatre.’’9 So dominant was the stage over the page inthis period that two earlier Arabic Hamlets have not survived inwritten form.10 Yet �Abdu seems to have wanted it both ways, seek-ing some literary value for his translation. The printed play wentinto two editions; the title page of the second (1902), which has sur-vived, reads (in Arabic):

The story ofHAMLET

a play in five actscomposed by Shakespeare the renowned English poet

* * *

Arabized byThe skilled writer Tanyus Effendi �Abdu

Owner of the well-reputed al-Sharq Newspaper

* * *

A second edition at the expense ofIbrahim Faris, owner of al-Sharqiyya

bookshop, Cairo, EgyptAl-Mat.ba‘a al-‘Umumiyya [The Public Press], Cairo, Egypt11

The translator thus brought all his cultural capital to the printedtext, giving himself equal billing with Shakespeare and invokinghis success as a journalist as well as his Ottoman title of Effendi

PAGE 135................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:11 PS

136 MARGARET LITVIN

(‘‘educated gentleman’’). In 1925, the year before his death, his lit-erary pretensions would lead him to republish several arias fromHamlet as part of a slim dıwan (poetry collection) with a glowingpreface by fellow Lebanese immigrant poet Khalil Mutran, 1872–1949).12 (Mutran’s own 1918 Hamlet, also criticized for inaccuracy,would nonetheless gain lasting prestige for its fine use of literaryArabic.) But as a book �Abdu’s Hamlet did not enjoy a successfulafterlife. Long considered lost, it returned to print only in 2005,after translation studies specialist Sameh Fekry Hanna discovereda copy in the library of St. Antony’s College, Oxford.13

Where �Abdu’s adaptation had an impact was on the stage. It wasperformed in Egypt at least seventeen times between 1901 and1910. From Cairo it traveled to Alexandria, Tanta, and Mansoura,becoming the second most popular Shakespeare adaptation afterNajib al-Haddad’s 1890s Martyrs of Love (Shuhada’ al-Gharam),based on Romeo and Juliet.14 In a theater world dominated by adap-tations and knockoffs of French comedy, particularly Moliere, al-Haddad’s Martyrs and �Abdu’s Hamlet showed that Shakespeare,too, could bring real box office success.

�Abdu’s Hamlet has lived on in popular memory. More than halfa century after the curtain last fell, translator Muhammad �AwadMuhammad, 1895–1972) reminisces about it in the introduction tohis own far more scholarly rendition of Hamlet. Quoting frommemory (he misidentifies the translator, as no one citing a printedtext would do), �Awad Muhammad reproduces the opening of Ham-let’s first aria verbatim, adding some faint praise for the author:

Some of us still carry, sticking in our minds from childhood,some traces of that old translation, such as Hamlet’s chant (inshad)in the first act—

Father where are you? See what’s taken place.A wedding where there used to be a wake,Funerals turned to feast days on the morrow,And on that mouth, a smile instead of sorrow.15

And although we, too, could smile at this translation, yet its writer de-serves our congratulations for opening the door to the translation of thisliterary monument, and for having no inhibitions about using poetry tobeautify his Arabization.16

There is indeed reason to smile: �Abdu’s Hamlet is a poor cousinof Shakespeare’s. Most of the text is in simple prose. Hamlet’s

PAGE 136................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:11 PS


major speeches and asides (and Ophelia’s speech at the end of thenunnery scene) appear as sections of fairly repetitive verse, morelike arias than soliloquies, as in the excerpt above. The act andscene divisions are odd; to begin with, the first act consists of two‘‘scenes,’’ the first comprising seven ‘‘parts’’ and the second com-prising four. There are scene changes that affect the plot; for in-stance, Hamlet’s relationship with his mother is rendered lesscomplicated in part by relocating the closet scene from her privatecloset to the palace’s main hall. The international politics areplayed down: Fortinbras is not mentioned in the council scene andnever appears on stage. The opening scene on the ramparts is like-wise omitted, making the play begin with the council scene and itsfirst line, the courtiers’ shout of ‘‘Long live the king!’’ Yet theGhost’s part is expanded overall, rendering the play less of a psy-chological drama about Hamlet and more of a ghost story.17

There are character changes as well. Most notably, Ophelia be-comes a somewhat stronger character through the addition of linesearly in the play and the sharpening of her ‘‘mad scene.’’ Early inthe play, an interpolated scene gives us a vision of her relationshipwith Hamlet before it is ruined by circumstances: the two youngpeople flirt charmingly (like Romeo and Juliet) in rhyming prose,and he calls her a ‘‘noble angel’’ (13). Hamlet later thinks of Ophe-lia with regret when he discovers he has killed Polonius, again rein-forcing Ophelia’s significance to him (67). In her madness Opheliaflashes back to Hamlet’s injunction to enter a nunnery, provoking anear-comic moment with the incomprehending King and Queen:‘‘What? What nunnery? You want to become a nun, Ophelia?’’ (77)

�Abdu’s Hamlet, meanwhile, is a decisive hero. For those Arabcritics whose idea of Shakespeare’s prince hinges either on hesita-tion or on contemplation, this represents a terrible loss. For in-stance, Nadia al-Bahar writes:

One may overlook the various changes and excisions in this adaptation,but the most glaring drawback lies in the protagonist himself. UnlikeShakespeare’s Hamlet, he is determined to wreak vengeance; he is onegiven to action rather than reflection. One is made aware of Hamlet’sresolution throughout the adaptation; he is not as reluctant or over-meditative as Shakespeare’s Prince. More like Laertes, he assigns greatvalue to honor which furnishes a valid motive for any course of actionhe is to take. But, unlike Laertes, who in succumbing to the demands ofhonor becomes its very slave and thereby induc[es] his own destruc-

PAGE 137................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:12 PS

138 MARGARET LITVIN

tion; Hamlet retires at the end with victory. Thus, much of the innerstruggle in the original Hamlet is lost and, alongside with it, much ofthe dramatic tension is diminished.18

However, �Abdu’s most striking difference from Shakespeare ishis ending, which Sameh Fekry Hanna has summed up as ‘‘LongLive Hamlet and Down With Shakespeare!’’19 In the play’s closingscene, Hamlet fatally wounds Laertes, stabs the king, then forceshim to drain the poisoned cup. Just at this moment the Ghost reap-pears, making himself visible to all those present. The final passageis worth quoting in full:

Hamlet: Am I not the king now? Everyone out! (All [courtiers] exit.) Osinners, do you see this ghost now?

Laert20: Oh God, whom do I see? The dead king!King: My brother!Queen: My husband!Laert (to the Ghost): My lord, your pardon!Ghost: Yes, for your tears have expiated your sin, and God is pitying

and merciful, so pray and die.Queen: Your mercy and forgiveness, for I am dying.Ghost: Your sin grew from love, and god is compassionate to lovers. O

woman, your tears have washed away your shame. You may havebeen a woman on earth, but you will be a queen in heaven, so prayand die. (Queen dies.)

King: Pardon, my brother, and have mercy on this criminal.Ghost: No pardon for you, and no mercy, you bloody traitor. Your filthy

soul will go to Hell, so despair, O traitor, and die. (King dies.)Hamlet: And me, father? Will God have mercy on me after all the blood

shed by my hand? Four people—will God forgive me this sin?Ghost: As for you, live happy on earth, forgiven in heaven. Ascend be-

fore my eyes to your uncle’s place, for this throne was created onlyfor your majesty. (Hamlet climbs the steps of the throne looking at hisfather with an expression of wonder. Ghost lowers into the ground,looking smilingly at Hamlet. The curtain descends gradually as theensemble sings a hymn from offstage.)

�Abdu’s most un-tragic denouement sees Justice done: the corrigi-ble sinners are forgiven, the incorrigible sent to their damnation.The exemplar of filial piety, showing praiseworthy concern for col-lateral casualties, is duly rewarded with a throne and paternalsmiles. Above all, the audience is sent out singing. Ophelia has

PAGE 138................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:12 PS


drowned by this time; but some early twentieth-century directors,honoring �Abdu’s spirit if not his script, made her survive and be-come Hamlet’s queen.21

Cribbing from Dumas

What no one has yet pointed out, to my knowledge, is that�Abdu’s Hamlet is based on the French Hamlet by AlexandreDumas pere (1802–70).22 Premiered in Paris in 1846, Dumas’ Ham-let was republished many times, including in 1863 and 1874 as partof Dumas’ complete works (of which �Abdu the ‘‘walking library’’surely owned a copy). �Abdu appears to have consulted Dumas’1848 edition or one of its reprints, not incorporating the later revi-sions that (at his co-writer’s insistence) restored Shakespeare’s end-ing.23 A textual comparison (with Dumas’ Hamlet, this time, notShakespeare’s) shows that �Abdu followed his source fairly closely,with some minor revisions. Only �Abdu’s songs create a major dif-ference in effect from Dumas’ play. They abandon Dumas’ highlyfluid and enjambed alexandrines for jinglelike Arabic verse. Thismakes Hamlet’s speeches less interesting to read but more singablefor the musical star playing Hamlet (of whom more below).

The debt to Dumas explains many peculiarities of the �Abdu ver-sion, from the apparent padding throughout (the French alexan-drine is two syllables longer than Shakespeare’s iambic pentameterline) to the odd act-part-scene divisions, clarified plot, excised For-tinbras subplot, and interpolated scenes. All the character changeswith which Arab critics have reproached �Abdu—the decisiveHamlet, active Ophelia, unsensual Gertrude, and prayerless Clau-dius—can be traced to his idiosyncratic French source.

Dumas also deserves the credit (or blame) for �Abdu’s happy end-ing. In his text, too, the Ghost appears, both to ‘‘see his murderersdie’’ (in Hamlet’s words) and to deliver the judgment of God andthe dramatist. The Ghost forgives Laertes and Gertrude, telling theimpulsive courtier to ‘‘pray and die’’ and the morally weak queento ‘‘hope and die’’ but sending Claudius, beyond pardon, to hell’scruelest fires. Only a shred of doubt is reintroduced in the play’slast lines: Hamlet, asking the Ghost what penalty awaits him fordelaying his revenge and causing four unnecessary deaths, is told:‘‘You will live!’’ (268) Justice is served, and the only uncertainty iswhether Hamlet’s survival is meant as a reward or a punishment.

PAGE 139................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:12 PS

140 MARGARET LITVIN

�Abdu reproduces this conclusion almost verbatim, adding only theGhost’s final benediction to clarify Dumas’ ambiguous (but cer-tainly not tragic) closing lines. Dumas’ closing gives a flavor of bothhis alexandrines and his moral vision (104–6):

HAMLET (aux courtisans, sur un signe de l’Ombre) :Et vous, laissez-nous! (Les courtisans hesitent; il brandit son fleuret).

Qu’un de vous fasse un pas,Il n’en fera pas deux! Je suis roi, n’est-ce pas?Roi de votre existence et de leur agonie!Il sied qu’entre nous cinq la piece soit finie!Sortez tous!(Intimides, ils sortent lentement)

A present, mourants, le voyez-vous?LAERTE : Dieu puissant! le roi mort!LE ROI : Mon frere!LA REINE: Mon epoux!LAERTE (a l’ombre): Grace!L’OMBRE: Oui, ton sang trop prompt t’entraina vers l’abıme,

Laerte, et le Seigneur t’a puni pour ton crime.Mais tu le trouveras, car il sonde les cœurs,Moins severe la-haut. Laerte,—prie et meurs! (Laerte meurt)

LA REINE: Pitie, pitie!L’OMBRE: Ta faute etait ton amour meme,

Ame trop faible, et Dieu vous aime quand on aime!Va, ton cœur a lave sa honte avec ses pleurs:Femme ici, reine au ciel, Gertrude—espere et meurs! (Gertrudemeurt)

LE ROI: Pardon!L’OMBRE: Pas de pardon! Va, meurtrier infame!

Pour tes crimes hideux, dans leurs cercles de flamme,Les enfers devorants n’ont pas trop de douleurs!Va, traitre incestueux! va! desespere et meurs! (Claudius meurt)

HAMLET: Et moi? vais-je rester, triste orphelin, sur terre,A respirer cet air impregne de misere?Tragedien choisi par le courroux de Dieu,Si j’ai mal pris mon role et mal saisi mon jeu,Si, tremblant de mon œuvre et lasse sans combattre,Pour un que tu voulais, j’en ai fait mourir quatre, —Est-ce que Dieu sur moi fera peser son bras,Pere? et quel chatiment m’attend donc?

L’OMBRE: Tu vivras!

PAGE 140................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:13 PS


‘‘Bend again toward France’’

Tanyus �Abdu’s choice of source makes sense: Dumas was invogue. His Orient-obsessed Le Comte de Monte-Cristo had beentranslated into Arabic in 1871, its enormous success inspiring tendifferent translators to tackle fourteen additional Dumas novels by1910.24 Stage adaptations based on Dumas, many of them ‘‘socialcritiques calling for class equality,’’ were ‘‘among the most popularplays’’ performed in early twentieth-century Cairo, Alexandria,and Beirut.25 As a source, Dumas represented the convergence of�Abdu’s leftist sympathies and his commercial instincts.

Dumas was also a culturally congenial source—more so thanShakespeare—because French aesthetics had done so much toshape the Arab theater of the day. Partly this is because the theatercommunity was heavily Francophone. Their earliest and most fre-quent adaptations had been of Moliere, not Shakespeare.26 Even by1901, the working model was still the French comedy or operetta.Joseph Zeidan observes:

Most of the persons involved in [theater translation] were graduates ofFrench schools in Lebanon, Syria, or Egypt. This phenomenon, togetherwith the fact that French was the most important European language inEgypt from the time of Muh. ammad �Alı’s reign until the British occupa-tion of 1882, was responsible for the fact that most of the Europeanplays chosen were either originally written in French or had been trans-lated into French from some other European language. Some of Shake-speare’s plays, for example, were translated into Arabic from French,rather than from English.27

French scripting and acting conventions (which partly incorpo-rated those of Italian opera) also spoke to the new Arab theater au-diences. These were drawn from the growing middle classes ofAlexandria, Cairo, and Beirut. Like French playgoers, they wantedto see ‘‘tableaux,’’ not interaction between characters. Well into thenineteenth century, French acting

was still of the neoclassical ‘‘teapot’’ or declamatory variety, wherebythe actor delivering the speech stood at the front of the stage and de-claimed his or her lines to the audience, while the rest of the actors on-stage stood behind, in a semicircle . . . The societaires at the Academie

PAGE 141................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:14 PS

142 MARGARET LITVIN

Francaise were even known to perform encores, repeating speeches outof context when the audience had applauded their delivery.28

In pre-Revolutionary France, Shakespeare’s plays had provokedambivalence. Critics from Voltaire onwards famously consideredhim ‘‘a drunken savage,’’ overflowing with genius but lacking intaste.29 Nonetheless, obsessed with Italian opera, French writersseized on the operatic possibilities of Shakespeare’s texts. Stageperformance began with the late-eighteenth-century ‘‘imitations’’of Jean-Francois Ducis (1733–1816), who bragged of knowing‘‘point l’anglois’’ (‘‘no English at all’’).30 Working from excerpts andprose summaries by Pierre Antoine de La Place (1707–93), Ducislabored to produce acceptably decorous yet ‘‘Shakespearean’’ ad-aptations of Hamlet (1769), Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Macbeth,Othello, and King John.31 Introducing extra characters and neoclas-sical balance, he turned Hamlet into a text on filial piety32 and apretext for elaborate visual display. (He also made ‘‘Ophelie’’ ahousehold word in France.33) For Ducis and his successors,

the procedure routinely followed was to reduce and regularise the text,while multiplying the cues for spectacle and ostentation. French Shake-speare was, in a word, operatic, and it entered the theatre through thebreach that opera had made. Visual and emotional stimulus were pro-vided by big stages, elaborate and realistic scenery, and supplementarypantomime and ballet. At the time when Shakespeare’s name began tocirculate in France, fashionable Paris was addicted to the Italian opera,and his work was taken up by theatre because it could be a vehicle forthis sort of entertainment.34

The operatic approach carried over to Egypt. Italian opera hadpublicly represented the modernizing drives of Egypt’s rulers eversince Giuseppe Verdi’s Aıda was commissioned to inaugurate Khe-dive Ismail’s Italian-style Opera House in the 1870s.35 The earliestterm for theater was the Italian tıatru (tiatro), not the later-adoptedArabic masrah. . Italian and French styles shaped Egyptian acting:dialogue was de-emphasized; soliloquies and other climacticspeeches were declaimed like arias, facing the audience, often for-tissimo.36

Leading man Shaykh Salama Higazi (1852–1917) epitomized thetrend. One of the first Egyptians in a theater milieu dominated bymostly Christian Syro-Lebanese immigrants, the wildly popularQuran-chanter-turned-singer was nicknamed ‘‘the Caruso of the

PAGE 142................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:14 PS


East’’ after his Italian younger contemporary, tenor Enrico Caruso(1873–1921).37 His popularity helped secure the place of the musi-cal as a lasting form in Egyptian theater and eventually also Egyp-tian cinema. Higazi starred in several Shakespeare plays, as well asversions of Aıda, Racine’s Andromaque, Corneille’s Horace, Alex-andre Dumas’ La Tour de Nesle, Victor Hugo’s Angelo and Marie-Tudor, Scribe’s l’Africaine, Dennery’s Les Deux Orphelines, and LaDame aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas fils. To each he broughthis distinctive style:

In performing a role, Higazi would alternate between declamation andsinging; this created a vogue for lyrical theater. Higazi’s contemporariestermed this genre opera, the term taken up by Iskandar Fahmy, who ob-served that ‘‘it effectively banished dramatic art.’’ One would betempted to call these works operettas, were they not denatured transla-tions of certain European melodramas, tragedies, dramas, and operas.38

This operatic background helps contextualize �Abdu’s Hamlet.The leading role was full of songs and empty of doubt to tailor it forthe then forty-nine-year-old Higazi, whose mere presence in a castat that time could guarantee a play’s commercial fortunes. Higaziwould later break with Farah and form his own Arabic TheaterCompany (Dar al-Tamthıl al-�Arabı) in 1905, taking Hamlet withhim: his fans were loyal, and they knew what they wanted. It isreported that when Higazi once bowed to high-cultural pressuresand tried to perform Hamlet without singing, they nearly rioted; tomollify them, a new song with lyrics by respected poet AhmadShawqi (1868–1932) was commissioned and integrated into futureperformances.39 Higazi later recorded the song, a lament that begandahr mas.a’ibı �andı bila �adad (‘‘Fate has afflicted me with innu-merable calamities’’), as part of his successful contract with theGerman phonograph company Odeon.40 The lyrics are preserved in�Abdu’s published text, where a footnote identifies their author as‘‘the honorable friend Ahmad Bey Shawqi, the prince of poets andpoet of the prince.’’41

Within the context of the French theater, ironically, Dumas’Hamlet had represented a move away from the dominance of staractors and their stilted acting.42 As a child, Dumas had been awes-truck by a performance of Ducis’ ‘‘imitation’’ of Hamlet; he claimedto have learned the leading role by heart.43 As a young man he hadbeen inspired by a visiting English production (1827, starring

PAGE 143................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:14 PS

144 MARGARET LITVIN

Charles Kemble and Harriet Smithson) that showed ‘‘the real fleshand blood passions’’ of Shakespeare’s characters yet deferred toFrench taste by omitting Fortinbras, Norway, bawdy language, andmany subplots and scenes.44 Nineteen years later, still knowing lit-tle English, Dumas entered a sometimes uneasy collaboration withthe young writer Paul Meurice. Working from Meurice’s literaltranslation, he sought to recreate the celebrated British Hamlet inhis own rewriting.

Like his sources, Dumas streamlines the plot and minimizeschanges of scenery. He moves the ‘‘closet scene’’ between Hamletand Gertrude (3.4) into the main hall (as did Ducis); his Hamlet ac-tually protests that a conversation in his mother’s bedroom mightbe overheard by her living husband or disturbed by her dead one(224). There is no prayer scene in which Hamlet forebears to killClaudius, so no ground for accusing Hamlet of indecision. Expur-gated yet exaggerated, the Meurice-Dumas Hamlet represents astrange mix of Romantic naturalism with the remnants of Ducis’neoclassical ‘‘bienseance’’ (propriety):

Dumas recast what in France was still widely regarded as a ramshacklemasterpiece, and pulled and pummelled Shakespeare’s imagery tomake it fit into rhyming alexandrines . . . Fortinbras disappeared, andthe whole of the opening scene on the battlements of the castle wasscrapped because there was no gainsaying old wisdom—it was super-fluous to depict what was subsequently narrated. But in the first act ascene was added in which Hamlet courted Ophelia and left her ex-claiming, breathless with rapture, Il m’aime! Il m’aime! Oh! Que je suisheureuse!45

The global kaleidoscope

Why has �Abdu’s obvious debt to Dumas thus far escaped schol-arly attention? Although it is widely repeated that �Abdu translatedShakespeare through the French, no one has ever taken the troubleto find out which version he used.

Nadia al-Bahar has come closest, claiming in her 1976 study ofearly Arabic Hamlets that �Abdu’s source was the 1769 adaptationby Jean-Francois Ducis.46 This is implausible: key features of Ducis’text (Ophelie’s status as Claudius’ daughter, the added confidant/echaracters of Elvire and Norceste, etc.) are absent from �Abdu’s;�Abdu includes Shakespearean scenes absent from Ducis (e.g., the

PAGE 144................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:15 PS


gravediggers); and their endings differ. As we have seen, �Abdu’sfew similarities to Ducis likely stem from Dumas’ own fascinationwith the Ducis version. But at least al-Bahar asks the question.Other scholars have treated �Abdu’s sourcing as irrelevant. Theysimply state that he translated from French, then get on with ana-lyzing ‘‘his’’ departures from Shakespeare.

The problem, I believe, is that scholars have naturally tended tolook at international Shakespeare appropriation through twolenses, both insufficient. Each appropriation represents 1) a re-working of Shakespeare and 2) a response to its own socioculturalcontext. As teachers and students, we have found it easy and fruit-ful to look at Text B and ask how it appropriates and revises TextA—or, somewhat better, how it reflects Context X. Both lenses, ofcourse, have their uses. However, this means that the majority ofappropriation studies until very recently have been either Shake-speare-centric or narrowly context-centric. They have often ig-nored what I have termed the ‘‘global kaleidoscope’’ of sources andmodels available to every rewriter.47 They have pretended insteadthat every Shakespeare appropriation represents a direct one-on-one engagement with Shakespeare’s text. In so doing they have lostaccess to the multitude of hidden intertexts that mediate everyadapter’s relationship with Shakespeare.

In general, the myth of adaptation as a binary process has out-lived its usefulness. It rarely happens in practice that a would-beadapter sits down at his or her desk and reads a Shakespeare playfor the first time. Rather, the first Shakespeare encounter is usuallymediated by some combination of the films, performances, abridg-ments, translations, articles, conversations, versions of otherShakespeare plays, and other materials that happen to be availablealongside, before, or even instead of the authoritative original text.

This may be particularly salient for non-Anglophone adapters. Ifthe original work enjoys global circulation, like Shakespeare’s trag-edies, then adapters receive competing intertexts from a great vari-ety of literary and theater traditions, not just from the ‘‘source’’culture. From these diverse intertexts they must choose theirShakespeare sources, much as a musical group chooses its ‘‘influ-ences.’’ The choice may be partly conscious and partly uncon-scious; like all artistic choices it is not taken in a vacuum, but indialogue with the priorities and resources of the adapter’s own cul-tural context.

We should not be hoodwinked by the adapters themselves. They

PAGE 145................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:15 PS

146 MARGARET LITVIN

often like to present themselves in unmediated dialogue with agreat author such as Shakespeare, erasing other intertexts fromview. Unsurprisingly, Dumas is not credited on �Abdu’s title page;‘‘Shakespeare the renowned English poet’’ is.

Our vision has been limited, too, by the binary Prospero-and-Cal-iban emphasis in much postcolonial criticism. In the case of ArabShakespeare, as �Abdu’s example shows, models from the Britishcolonizer’s culture were important but not decisive. Certainly therewere British schools with required English classes and schoolboyabridgments such as the Lambs’ Tales from Shakespeare, availablein both English and Arabic by 1900. But in every period there havebeen other privileged channels from which Arab writers chosesources to influence their views of literature, theatre, and Shake-speare: French in the nineteenth century, then later German, Amer-ican, Soviet, and Eastern European. Shakespeare was nearly alwaysreceived as a global (�alamı) writer, not a particularly English writeror a British colonial export. For that matter, there is nothing spe-cifically colonial or postcolonial about the Arab case. French trans-lations also mediated the initial reception of Shakespeare in Italy,Spain, Holland, Russia, and many parts of Eastern Europe.

In contrast to the paradigm of postcolonial appropriation, myglobal kaleidoscope model gives up any claim to predictive power:it offers no systematic theory of which intellectuals will appro-priate which Shakespeare texts, and how, at what historical mo-ments. At best, it offers an angle of approach. Its main virtue,demonstrated in �Abdu’s example, is that it can bring previouslyhidden intertexts into view. In the Arab case, as I will conclude bysuggesting, it can also serve the larger project of reinserting modernArabic literature into world literature.

‘‘An unsophisticated audience’’

Like Shakespeareans, scholars of Arab drama have overlooked�Abdu’s direct source. At most, they point to his use of French asfurther evidence of his sloppy translation practice; the French text(simply because it is not in English) is another layer of incompre-hension between �Abdu and Shakespeare. Even al-Bahar and Zei-dan (both quoted above), immediately after noting that �Abdu’sHamlet relied on a French source, proceed to mock �Abdu’s plotand character choices as though they were his own. This pattern of

PAGE 146................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:16 PS


mockery is present in English- and Arabic-language works on earlyArab theater for both scholarly and more general audiences. Pokingfun at early twentieth-century Arab performance culture, it seems,is a temptation too strong to resist.

Since traditional Arabic high culture famously lacks the conceptof tragedy,48 �Abdu’s smile-inducing ending has played into largercultural anxieties. The Arab public’s aesthetic competence isbrought into question: are Arab playgoers qualified to deal with thegreat western literary classics? Dissertations on Arab Shakespearewritten by Arab students in American or British doctoral programsespecially tend to reproduce this discourse. For instance, here isAmel Amin Zaki’s comment on ‘‘ �Abdu’s’’ typically French inter-polated love scene:

The style of �Abduh’s version is quite poor, and sounds as though itwere written by a high school student. Several times Hamlet addressesOphelia as ‘‘sweetheart,’’ ‘‘angel,’’ ‘‘loving angel,’’ expressions of en-dearment we never hear him utter in the original . . . The paragraph inquestion provides a good example of the manner in which the translatortried to play on the emotions of a culturally and aesthetically unsophis-ticated audience that was incapable of distinguishing between goodand bad art.49

A Bourdieusian approach like Sameh Hanna’s helps reverse theplus and minus signs. Fidelity to Shakespeare’s text is no longerthe issue. �Abdu’s adaptation to his audience’s desires becomes avirtue, and ‘‘the change introduced by Tanyous �Abduh to the end-ing of Hamlet’’ can be socioculturally explained:

In relating to the mainstream theatre audience in the late 19th and early20th centuries, both theatre translators and playwrights needed to beaware of two factors: the social reality of their audience and the range offamiliar folk narratives which formed their world view and conditionedtheir appreciation of all other forms of popular entertainment. . . . Theaudience in early twentieth-century Egypt would not have accepted adead Hamlet after all the perils he experiences in the play. This wouldhave been a stark breach of their social as well as aesthetic codes.50

From this socioaesthetic analysis it is one short step to see what�Abdu’s audience really wanted: an uplifting French drama au-thored by Shakespeare! As a commercially motivated translator,�Abdu had every incentive to deliver one.

PAGE 147................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:16 PS

148 MARGARET LITVIN

Recognizing the French connection, however, finally lets �Abduand his Egyptian audiences off the hook. It is no longer a problemof traditional Arab culture and its compatibility with the greatwestern classics. It turns out that ‘‘familiar folk narratives’’ have nodirect impact on �Abdu’s revisions to Hamlet, although of coursehis audience’s tastes (and his own) did condition his choice ofDumas. Ironically, �Abdu’s much-criticized distortions of Shake-speare can be traced to hypercivilized French writers and audi-ences, not backward Arab ones.

In this light, it is interesting that Dumas’ Hamlet remained in theComedie-Francaise repertoire until the First World War, preciselythe same time Mutran’s Arabic adaptation replaced �Abdu’s inEgypt. Dumas’ text (albeit with deep revisions) was performed inFrance as late as 1954.51 By then, �Abdu’s imitation was long gonefrom the Arab stage.

NOTES

This article’s fundamental debt to the work of Sameh Fekry Hanna will be evidentthroughout. I am also grateful to Susan Jackson and Susan Zimmerman for helpfulcomments. To facilitate library and Internet searches, I follow a more formal trans-literation system for Arabic proper names in the notes than in the main text.

1. M. M. Badawi, ‘‘Shakespeare and the Arabs,’’ Cairo Studies in English(1966): 181–96; Nadia al-Bahar, ‘‘Shakespeare in Early Arabic Adaptations,’’Shakespeare Translation 3, no. 13 (1976): 13–25; Suheil Bushrui, ‘‘Shakespeareand Arabic Drama and Poetry,’’ Ibadan 20 (1964): 5–16; Tawfıq H. abıb, ‘‘Shaksbırfı Mis.r,’’ al-Hilal, December 1, 1927, 201–4; Falah Kanaan, ‘‘Shakespeare on theArab Page and Stage.’’ (PhDiss., University of Manchester, 1998); Fatma MoussaMahmoud, ‘‘Hamlet in Egypt,’’ Cairo Studies in English (1990): 51–61; GhalıShukrı, ‘‘Shaksbır fı al-�Arabiyya,’’ in Thawrat al-Fikr fı Adabina al-H. adıth (Cairo:Maktabat al-Anglu al-Mis.riyya, 1965), 54–71; Mohamed M. Tounsi, ‘‘Shakespearein Arabic: A Study of the Translation, Reception, and Influence of Shakespeare’sDrama in the Arab World.’’ (Ed Diss., University of Northern Colorado, 1989); Mo-hammed Baqir Twaij, ‘‘Shakespeare in the Arab World.’’ (PhDiss., NorthwesternUniversity, 1973); Amel Amin Zaki, ‘‘Shakespeare in Arabic.’’ (PhDiss., IndianaUniversity, 1978).

2. Bushrui, ‘‘Shakespeare and Arabic Drama and Poetry,’’ 6.3. See Sameh F. Hanna, ‘‘Towards a Sociology of Drama Translation: A Bour-

dieusian Perspective on Translations of Shakespeare’s Great Tragedies in Egypt.’’(PhDiss., University of Manchester, 2006); Sameh F. Hanna, ‘‘Hamlet Lives Hap-pily Ever After in Arabic,’’ The Translator 11, no. 2 (2005): 167–92; Sameh F.Hanna, ‘‘Othello in Egypt: Translation and the (Un)making of National Identity,’’in Translation and the Construction of Identity, ed. Juliane House, M. RosarioMartın Ruano, and Nicole Baumgarten (Seoul: IATIS, 2005), 109–28; Sameh F.

PAGE 148................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:16 PS


Hanna, ‘‘Decommercialising Shakespeare: Mutran’s Translation of Othello,’’ Criti-cal Survey 19, no. 3 (2007): 27–54; Mark Bayer, ‘‘The Martyrs of Love and theEmergence of the Arab Cultural Consumer,’’ Critical Survey 19, no. 3 (2007): 6–26.For the approach more broadly, see Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Produc-tion: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993);Richard Jacquemond, Conscience of the Nation: Writers, State, and Society inModern Egypt, trans. David Tresilian (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press,2008); Elisabeth Kendall, Literature, Journalism, and the Avant-Garde: Intersec-tion in Egypt (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).

4. See, e.g., Zaki, ‘‘Shakespeare in Arabic,’’ 85–113; Hanna, ‘‘Towards a Soci-ology,’’ 125–54.

5. Ilham Makdisi, ‘‘Theater and Radical Politics in Beirut, Cairo, and Alexan-dria: 1860–1914’’ (Georgetown University: Center for Contemporary Arab StudiesOccasional Paper, 2006), 30.

6. A criticism analyzed in Hanna, ‘‘Towards a Sociology,’’ 127 and chapter 3.7. Hanna, ‘‘Hamlet Lives,’’ 170.8. Matti Moosa, The Origins of Modern Arabic Fiction (Washington, D.C.:

Three Continents Press, 1983), 107. He is paraphrasing �Abdu’s exact contempo-rary, writer-journalist Salım Sarkıs (1869–1926).

9. Hanna, ‘‘Hamlet Lives,’’ 185.10. Ramsıs �Awad. cites two earlier translations by Amın H. addad and Jurj

Mırza, now lost. See Ramsıs �Awad. , Shaksbır fı Mis.r (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Mis.riyyaal-�Amma li-l-Kitab, 1986), 84.

11. See Hanna, ‘‘Towards a Sociology,’’ 51. Title page reproduced and trans-lated on 305–6. I have modified the translation slightly.

12. Among the Hamlet poems reprinted in �Abdu’s dıwan are ‘‘Manajat Jum-juma’’ (‘‘Monologue of a skull,’’ i.e., Hamlet’s ‘‘Alas, poor Yorick’’ speech); ‘‘Wada�H. asna’’’ (‘‘Farewell, beauty,’’ i.e., Laertes’ and the Queen’s words at Ophelia’sgrave); ‘‘Hamlit wa-Ummuhu’’ (‘‘Hamlet and his mother,’’ partially translatedbelow, cf. Hamlet 1.2.129–59); and ‘‘Kalam �Ashiq’’ (‘‘A lover’s speech,’’ Hamlet’sletter to Ophelia, cf. 2.2.115ff ). They are presented as freestanding poems; only‘‘Hamlet and his Mother’’ is labeled as coming ‘‘From the play Hamlet by the au-thor of this dıwan.’’ See T. anyus �Abduh, Dıwan T. anyus �Abduh (Cairo: Mat.ba�atal-Hilal, 1925), 64, 65, 80, and 81.

13. For the story of this discovery, see the editor’s introduction to T. anyus�Abduh, Hamlit, ed. Samih. Fikrı H. anna (Cairo: Supreme Council of Culture ofEgypt, 2005), ii.

14. al-Bahar, ‘‘Shakespeare.’’ She also credits �Abdu’s Hamlet with an earlierrun in Alexandria (1897–98), but this is contradicted by Hanna and not confirmedby the best authority, M. Y. Najm (see note 40 below; pages 80–81). Perhaps the1890s’ performances used one of the two earlier Hamlet translations, now lost.

15.

This is the opening of the poem reprinted in Tanyus �Abdu’s dıwan under the title‘‘Hamlet and his mother,’’ p. 80. The full twelve-line poem, standing in for Ham-let’s first soliloquy, simply laments the fickleness of Hamlet’s mother.

16. William Shakespeare, Hamlit, Amır Danimark, trans. Muh. ammad �Awad.Muh. ammad, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Ma�arif, 2000), 24.

PAGE 149................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:19 PS

150 MARGARET LITVIN

17. Marcellus and Bernardo reintroduce many details from the ramparts scenewhen they later narrate the Ghost’s appearance to Hamlet.

18. al-Bahar, ‘‘Shakespeare,’’ 19.19. Editor’s introduction to �Abduh, Hamlit, vi.20. �Abdu’s text transcribes the French pronunciation, not the English.21. Personal communication from Sameh Hanna. (In �Abdu’s 1902 printed text

Ophelia dies.)22. Alexandre Dumas, Hamlet, vol. 11, Theatre Complet de Alex. Dumas (Paris:

Michel Levy Freres, 1874). Subsequent references are to this edition, by pagenumber.

23. Romy Heylen, Translation, Poetics, and the Stage: Six French Hamlets (Lon-don: Routledge, 1993), 45–60.

24. Sabry Hafez, The Genesis of Arabic Narrative Discourse: A Study in the So-ciology of Modern Arabic Literature (London: Saqi Books, 1993), 279n94.

25. Makdisi, ‘‘Theater,’’ 21.26. See, e.g., El-Saıd Atia Abul Naga, Les sources francaises du theatre egyptien

(1870–1939) (Algiers: SNED, 1972).27. Joseph T. Zeidan, ‘‘Modern Arab Theater: The Journey Back,’’ in Tradition

and Modernity in Arabic Literature, ed. Issa J. Boullata and Terri DeYoung (Fay-etteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 173–92, esp. 180.

28. Heylen, Translation, 47.29. Quoted in John Pemble, Shakespeare Goes to Paris: How the Bard Con-

quered France (London: Hambledon, 2005), 6.30. Quoted in Heylen, Translation, 28.31. See Jean-Francois Ducis, Hamlet, tragedie, imitee de l’anglois (Paris: Chez

Gogue, 1770).32. Dedicating a later edition to his own father (1812), Ducis explains that in

adapting Hamlet, ‘‘Mon but avait ete de peindre la tendresse d’un fils pour sonpere’’ (‘‘my goal was to depict a son’s affection for his father’’). Jean-FrancoisDucis, Hamlet, tragedie en cinq actes, imitee de l’anglois (Paris: A. Nepveu,1826), 6.

33. James M. Vest, The French Face of Ophelia from Belleforest to Baudelaire(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989), 75–96.

34. Pemble, Shakespeare Goes, 95.35. Cairo’s Opera House, designed by Italian architects, was commissioned in

1869 by Khedive Ismail (ruler of Egypt 1863–79) to celebrate the opening of theSuez Canal. Because the Egyptian-themed Aıda was not ready for its openingnight, Verdi’s Rigoletto was performed instead; Aıda premiered in December 1871.Khedive Ismail’s Opera House burned down in 1971; a parking garage now standsin its place, and the new Opera House is in another location. For photos, see FayzaHassan, ‘‘Not by Bread Alone,’’ al-Ahram Weekly, November 4, 1999.

36. On these ‘‘rather melodramatic’’ signs of French and Italian influence see,e.g., Badawi, ‘‘Shakespeare and the Arabs,’’ 195. It is still the case that some Egyp-tian actors are applauded upon their character’s first entrance in a play (whichinterrupts the action), and that monologues, even those which are not soliloquiesbut addressed to other characters, are typically recited facing the audience.

37. Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (Cairo: AmericanUniversity in Cairo Press, 1998), 107.

38. Abul Naga, Les sources francaises, 214.

PAGE 150................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:19 PS


39. Muh. ammad Yusuf Najm, Al-Masrah. iyya fı al-Adab al-�Arabı al-H. adıth:1847–1914 (Beirut: Dar Bayrut li-l-T. iba�a wa-l-Nashr 1956), 260.

40. Odeon had opened a Cairo office soon after its founding in 1904. The com-pany signed Higazi in 1906, eventually producing forty-seven of his records. Oneof the earliest bestsellers was ‘‘Peace Be Upon Such a Beauty,’’ a song from theRomeo and Juliet adaptation in which Higazi also starred; it sold twenty thousandrecords in one year. See al-Bahar, ‘‘Shakespeare,’’ 20–21; Frederic Lagrange, ‘‘LesArchives de la Musique Arabe—Salama Higazi,’’(1994), http://www.bolingo.org/audio/arab/gudian/higazi.html.

41. Page 86. On this interpolated poem see Hanna, ‘‘Hamlet Lives,’’ 186.42. On Dumas’ ambitions and disappointments on the Parisian theater scene,

see Heylen, Translation, 45–60.43. Pemble, Shakespeare Goes, 109.44. Heylen, Translation, 45.45. Pemble, Shakespeare Goes, 110.46. al-Bahar, ‘‘Shakespeare,’’ 13.47. For the model and an example from a later period, see Margaret Litvin,

‘‘Vanishing Intertexts in the Arab Hamlet Tradition,’’ Critical Survey 19, no. 3(2007): 74–94.

48. See, e.g., Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, ‘‘La busca de Averroes.’’49. Zaki, ‘‘Shakespeare in Arabic,’’ 93.50. Hanna, ‘‘Hamlet Lives,’’ 188.51. Pemble, Shakespeare Goes, 109.

PAGE 151................. 18027$ CH11 08-04-11 11:21:20 PS

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Title:

Source:

ISSN:

Publisher:

The French Source of the Earliest Surviving Arabic Hamlet

Shakespeare Stud 39 Ja 2011 p. 133-151

0582-9399

Associated University Presses

2010 EastPark Boulevard, Cranbury, NJ 08512

The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproducedwith permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright isprohibited. To contact the publisher: http://arts.fdu.edu/aup/

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub- licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

litvin on hamlet

Documents