Shakespeare Telugu literature

William Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564 and he passed away on April 23, 1616. The entire world celebrated his 400th birth anniversary in 1964 and many seminars and celebrations are being held now all over the world to commemorate his 400th death anniversary.

In 1964, Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Academy conducted a competition of a book-length study of Shakespeare’s life and works, and it was none other than Buchibabu who bagged the coveted prize. Later, the Academy published his work ‘Shakespeare Sahithee Paraamrsa’. In his inimitable individualistic style Buchibabu introduced Shakespeare, authentically and effectively, to the Telugu readers.

William Shakespeare is arguably one of the greatest writers in English literature. His works have inspired many generations and will keep on enticing the generations to come. This April 23 marks his 400th death anniversary and on the ocassion we discuss his influence on many Indian writers, especially from Telugu literature

That was the first comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare for me too. Polapraggada Sathyanarayana Moorthy, another popular novelist and also an English lecturer like Buchibabu, was also one of the competitors for that prize and later he too published his book on Shakespeare.

Renaissance reached India in the 19th century through English education and the influence of English literature on Indian literature can be hardly exaggerated. And thus Shakespeare’s influence of or the intimacy with modern Indian literature is too obvious to be unnoticed.

‘Bhanumathi Chittavilasa’, the Bengali translation of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is one of the early plays of Bengali theatre that paved the way for the establishment of Hindu Theatre in Calcutta. Rabindranath Tagore wrote a beautiful essay by making a comparative study of Kalidasa’s ‘Sakunthalam’ and Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’.

Shakespeare has been very close to modern Telugu literature ever since the beginning. VR Narla observed that the non-theatricality of Gurajada Apparao’s ‘Kanyasulkam’ was due to the influence of the Elizabethan drama in general and Shakespeare’s plays in particular. R S Sudarshanam, the noted Telugu critic brings out an interesting comparative study of the characters of Girisam in ‘Kanyasulkam’ and Falstaff in ‘Henry IV – Part I’.

He thinks that Prof. Bradley’s observation that the bliss of freedom gained in humour was the essence of Falstaff that exactly suits Girisam too. Sudarshanam argues that a comparative study of Falstaff (Henry IV) and Girisam, Doll Tear Sheet (Henry V) and Madhuravani and Mistress Quickly (Henry V) and ‘Pootakoollamma’ would clearly prove Shakespeare’s influence on Gurajada.

‘Hamlet’, arguably the magnum opus of Shakespeare has many interpretation in Telugu literature also. Buchibabu attempts a detailed study of Hamlet in his novel, ‘Chivaraku Migiledi’. He points out that the influence of a sin committed by the parents on children is an important theme of ‘Hamlet’ and he dealt with the same theme in his novel also.

The great ethical values get demeaned when some people become responsible for the sins committed by the others and consequentially get victimised. Like the incestuous relationship of Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, with his uncle Claudius, that dogs Hamlet. The sin of the mother of the protagonist in ‘Chivaraku Migiledi’, Dayanidhi, haunts him and tortures him. Buchibabu says that Dayanidhi upholds some ethical values in the process of encountering them and that forms the basic tenants of the novel.

Interestingly, Dayanidhi not only arranges the play ‘Hamlet’ but also voluntarily plays the role of ‘Hamlet’. Buchibabu was so fascinated by the character of Hamlet that he discussed various interpretations of it elaborately in his novel. Besides analysing the views of TS Eliot, Goethe and others, he too tries to trace out three reasons for Hamlet’s procrastination. He opines that the reason for the vacillation of Hamlet lies in the secret life of Shakespeare and he might also be tortured by the sin of his mother.

In his book on Shakespeare, Buchibabu quotes Wodehouse, who jocularly refers to the reasons for the ambiguities and mysteries of Shakespeare’s plays. He imagines a situation in which Richard Burbage, the partner of Globe Theatre and the famous player who portrayed all the roles of the protagonists of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes comes to him at noon, wakes him as he overslept as usual, complains that the play from the previous night was a miserable failure, and so he had to write another one immediately before the next morning failing which, they wouldn’t survive and sustain as professional theatre men.

Then Shakespeare sips a cup of tea and scribbles a play in a single sitting without re-reading it, and thus emerges a play with many loose ends and gaps, ‘Hamlet’. Although it is a literary joke it reflects the myriad ways in which the play has been interpreted. After analysing it for centuries, finally, the critics have discovered that they have been introspecting themselves and ‘Hamlet’ has become a pretext for introspection. A work of art ultimately becomes a medium for self-understanding for the reader and ‘Hamlet’ emerges as an archetypal protagonist.

Aluri Bairagi also chose ‘Hamlet’ as one of his voices to express the anguish of the contemporary man in his ‘Noothilo Gonthukalu’. There Hamlet says:

“Today, when the storm stopped,
After destroying the creepers amidst,
The fallen leaves and flowers,
And footprints of destruction,
It is known that,
The question may be right,
But the answer is wrong.”

Around six years back, Vadrevu Chinaveerabhadrudu wrote a story, ‘Pataantharam’, a different kind of re-reading of Hamlet. It is a story of an editor of a journal who couldn’t act in time. In the beginning, he tells that his generation grew up with ‘Hamlet’ and their discussions of all things at that time inevitably referred by ‘Hamlet’ in one way or the other.

He indulges in an argument with a young man on whether Hamlet is a tragedy of family fragmentation or the decay of a state. But the irony is that a similar procrastination by the editor results in a disaster thereby asserting the contemporary nature of Hamlet.

The play lured the Telugu movies too and BN Reddy’s ‘Rajamakutam’ is a Telugu version of it. Recently, Bollywood also made a modern Indian version of ‘Hamlet’ – ‘Haider’, starring Shahid Kapoor. In the Telugu movie Gertrude the mother of Hamlet becomes a loyal wife and a doting mother and Ophelia becomes a trustworthy lover.

In ‘Haider’ the character of the mother becomes ambiguous and the lady love turns out to be a clever and unfortunate girl rather than an innocent decoy. Some modern interpretations probe into the marital incompatibility of Hamlet senior and Gertrude and even attribute the failure to the sexual impotency of the husband.

A recent Hollywood movie, ‘Anonymous’, points out that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was the true author of William Shakespeare's plays. In his short one-act play ‘The Queen and Mr Shakespeare’, David Scott Daniel argues that the dramatist had to pigeonhole Hamlet for a while to write another play as per the wish of the queen. (A Telugu translation of the play by Madhuranthakam Rajaram was published in Swathi monthly in 1990)

About three decades ago, I vaguely remember, in his guest lectures on ‘The Old Inputs and the New Outputs’ at S V University, Tirupati, Nani Palkhivala, the renowned Indian jurist made a jovial remark on Shakespeare. He observed that Shakespeare would have been an Indian sage in his last birth. Where is the proof, he posed the question and answered it, “What more proof do you need than his work?”