Blank verse: a tradução da história e das histórias de William Shakespeare no mundo virtual

Abstract

Blank Verse is a web series that portrays William Shakespeare and other historic characters from the Elizabethan period as university students and staff in the 21st century. Through short episodes we follow their journeys as young writers in an environment that is completely mediated by technology. The creative mixture of historical, biographical and fictional elements prompted for the reflections presented in this thesis. The first step in this analysis is the historical contextualization of the Elizabethan period, also known as the “golden age” of drama, as well as the creative writing process of William Shakespeare and other playwrights. Two biographers, Bill Bryson and Peter Ackroyd, were instrumental in the reconstruction of the bard’s role as an author and historical character. It was then necessary to understand the virtual platforms that enabled the emergence of Blank Verse, therefore authors such as Henry Jenkins, Marie-Laure Ryan and Pierre Levy laid the grounds for the studies of media theories and transmedia narratives. The creative writing processes play a major role throughout the web series. Thus, in order to understand the importance of writing and authorship in this fictional recreation of Shakespeare's biography, it was vital to read authors such as Luciene Azevedo, Eneida Souza, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. Finally, considering the connection between present and past, biography and fiction that was evidenced by the web series, the thesis proposes a reflection on the weakening of the boundaries between history and literature, truth and fiction, real and virtual, all of which are products of the same tool: language. In this respect, the theoretical grounds were laid by the historians and philosophers Hayden White, Pierre Nora, Paul Veyne, Giorgio Agambem, Walter Benjamin and Friedrich Nietzsche. Additionally, William Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic production, especially the plays from the beginning of his career, being present throughout the entire web series, are also part of the corpus of this thesis.