“To meme or not to meme”, and to do so during a Pandemic. Shakespeare and the Memetic Transmission of a Classic


Abstract


Shakespeare’s protean quality is an intrinsic feature: his works and even his persona have always been adapted and have been capable of transmitting through time and space. Rather than merely being the latest form of remediations, this paper suggests that memes can be related to the very nature of a classic, which resides in its transmissibility. In this paper, informed by the idea that a classic is comparable to a viral content, I analyse a few Shakespeare-related internet memes created in the first half of 2020, during the initial phase of the Coronavirus pandemic emergency, that assimilate Shakespeare in a pandemic context. An English icon, Shakespeare seems to be able to speak to different audiences in their own language, even in the lyophilized form of the internet meme.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i22390359v45p207

Keywords: meme; adaptation; virality; cultural transmission; intersemiotic translation

References


Barth J. 2013, L’algebra e il fuoco. Saggi sulla scrittura, a cura di M. Testa, tradotto da M. Abeni, minimum fax, Roma.

Bloom H. 1998, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, The University of Michigan, New York.

Bolter J.D. and Grusin R. 2001, Remediation. Understanding New Media, The MIT Press, Cambridge (MA)/London.

Calvino I. 1993, Iniziare e finire in Id., Lezioni americane. Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio, Mondadori, Milano.

Capolavori della letteratura Disney 2020, Gedi, Milano.

Dawkins R. 2016, The Selfish Gene, 40th anniversary edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Denslow K.N. 2017, Guest Starring Hamlet: The Proliferation of the Shakespeare Meme on American Television, in Desmet C., Loper N. and Casey J. (eds.), Shakespeare / Not Shakespeare. Reproducing Shakespeare, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 97-110.

Doescher I. 2014, William Shakespeare's Star Wars Trilogy: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, William Shakespeare's the Empire Striketh Back, William Shakespeare's the Jedi Doth Return, Quirk Books, Philadelphia.

Doescher I. 2019, William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!, Quirk Books, Philadelphia.

Eco U. 2003, Dire quasi la stessa cosa. Esperienze di traduzione, Bompiani, Milano.

Eco U. (ed.) 1972, Estetica e teoria dell’informazione, Bompiani, Milano.

Erne L. 2008, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Fischer-Lichte E. 2004, Asthetik des Performativen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main; trans. by Jain S.I., Routledge 2008, The Transformative Power of Performance. A New Aesthetics, London/New York.

Forster E.M. 1990, Aspects of the Novel, edited by Oliver Stallybrass, Penguin Books, London.

Garber M. 2004, Introduction, in Garber M., Shakespeare After All, Anchor Books, New York, pp. 3-42.

Gleick J. 2011, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Pantheon Books, New York.

Johnson S. 1963, Preface to Shakespeare, in Hutchins R.M. and Adler M.J. (eds.), Gateway to the Great Books, vol. 5, Critical Essays, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., William Benton Publisher, Chicago/London/Toronto/Geneva/Sydney/Tokyo/Manila, pp. 316-352.

Lakoff G. and Johnson M. 2003, Metaphors we live by, with a new afterwards, The University of Chicago Press, London.

Knobel, M., Lankshear C. 2006, Online Memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production.

Saint-Beuve C.A. 1963, What is a Classic, in Hutchins R.M., Adler M.J. (edited by), Gateway to the Great Books, vol. V, Critical Essays, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., William Benton Publisher, Chicago etc., pp. 65-75.

Shakespeare W. 2017, Macbeth, traduzione di V. Gassman, introduzione di P. Bertinetti, apparati a cura di A.L. Zazo, con uno scritto di Y. Bonnefoy, testo inglese a fronte, Mondadori, Milano.

Shakespeare W. 2001, Romeo and Juliet, Giunti, Firenze.

Shifman L. 2013, Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker, in “Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication”, 18, pp. 362-377.

Sontag S. 1978, Illness as Metaphor, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.

Sontag S. 1989, AIDS and Its Metaphors, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.

Squeo A. 2014, Shakespeare’s Hypertextual Performances: Remediating The Tempest in Prospero’s Books, in Bigliazzi S. and Clavi L. (eds.), Revisiting The Tempest. The Capacity to Signify, Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Susca C. 2020, La trasmissione del sapere e l’invenzione del passato. Shakespeare (e Beethoven) nei loop causali di Doctor Who, in V. Merola, S. Pavone, F. Pirani (a cura di), Personaggi storici in scena, Eum, Macerata.

Wasik B. 2010, And Then There’s This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture, Penguin Books, New York.

Filmography

Things I Hate About You, USA, 1999, directed by Gil Junger.

Hamlet, London, 2018, directed by Federay Holmes and Elle While.

O, USA, 2001, directed by Tim Blake Nelson.

Romeo + Juliet, USA, 1996, directed by Baz Luhrman.

Shakespeare in Love, USA, UK, 1998, directed by John Madden.

Websites and Tools

Twin Peaks Memes to Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Classic Show. https://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/30-twin-peaks-memes-to-celebrate-the-30th-anniversary-of-the-cult-classic-show/86242115/ (22.04.2020).

Cassandro D. 2020, Siamo in guerra! Il coronavirus e le sue metafore. https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/daniele-cassandro/2020/03/22/coronavirus-metafore-guerra (22.04.2020).

Hand washing memes are going viral after Coronavirus advice. https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/hand-washing-coronavirus-memes/ (22.04.2020).

Marsh C., Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine. What are you doing with your time?. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/shakespeare-wrote-king-lear-in-quarantine-what-are-you-doing-with-your-time (12.07.2021).

Testa A., Smettiamo di dire che è una guerra. https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/annamaria-testa/2020/03/30/metafora-guerra-coronavirus (April 22, 2020).

Soen H., These 21 hilarious washing hands memes will have you cleaning like a pro. https://thetab.com/uk/2020/03/11/washing-hands-memes-poster-147319 (22.04.2020).

Wash Your Lyrics. https://washyourlyrics.com/ (22.04.2020).

World Health Organization, Clean hands protect against infection.k https://www.who.int/gpsc/clean_hands_protection/en/ (22.04.2020).


Full Text: pdf

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.