Hvar City Theatre Days, Vol. 46 No. 1, 2020.
Original scientific paper
Rejected Traditions: Saints’ Plays in Croatian Dramatic Canon
Marija Krnić
Abstract
The genesis of Dalmatian saints’ plays is often misinterpreted in Croatian history of theatre. According to the dominant view in scholarship, they emerged as a mere translation of the plays written in Italian. In this article I argue that the origins of this hypothesis can be traced to the nineteenth-century formation of the Croatian cultural canon. I challenge this hypothesis and propose that the transfer of the plays from the western to the eastern Adriatic coast, according to Linda Hutcheon’s model of adaptation, should not be explained as a result of translation but of adaptation. In Hutcheon’s model, the relationship between the source text and the new text is not a hierarchical one – the source text is not granted an axiomatic primacy and authority. When talking of adaptation, Hutcheon assumes a new work of its own literary and cultural value is created. I apply Hutcheon’s analytical model to the comparative analysis of the Florentine play La sacra rappresentazione e festa di Santa Margherita and the seventeenth century Dalmatian saint play Prikazanje života svete Margarite, divice i mučenice. The distinctive features are interpreted with the aim to reconstruct the ‘horizon of expectations’ of Dalmatian audiences
Keywords
saints’ plays; adaptation; historiography; Play of the Life Saint Margaret the Virgin and Martyr; dramatic canon
Hrčak ID:
246510
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2020.
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