Haunting Emotions

Visualizing Hamlet's Melancholy for Students in Two Recent Graphic Novel Adaptations

Authors

  • Marina Gerzic University of Western Australia
  • Helen Balfour University of Western Australia

Abstract

The study of emotion and Shakespeare and, in particular, emotion and Hamlet, is well established. Shakespeare's work enables us to experience emotions and their transformations as we try to understand them. From the opening of the play, Hamlet's emotions are all too clearly present; Shakespeare defines him as a passionate and emotional man plagued by melancholy. How is this human emotion interpreted and visualized by authors attempting to adapt Hamlet in the twenty-first century? In recent years, visual literacy has become a prominent aspect of classroom learning. In a changing, more visually dependent world, students need to learn how to read the visual as well as the textual. The medium of graphic storytelling can help students learn how to do this. This paper will examine two recent graphic novel versions of Shakespeare: Kill Shakespeare (2010-current), by Canadian writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery (alongside Andy Belanger as head-artist), and Australian author Nicki Greenberg's Hamlet (2010). Each of these graphic novels includes the character Hamlet as the protagonist, and each of these texts approaches adapting the melancholy Dane (and Shakespeare's "text") in very different ways. Through comparisons with Shakespeare's canonical play-text, including Shakespeare's incorporation of humoural ideas of melancholy, we will analyze how this aspect of Hamlet's emotions are visually interpreted and developed in these two new media adaptations. The essay concludes that these adaptations of Hamlet work well as a text for K-12 students because the emotions Hamlet experiences are presented in a relatable way. The texts help these students to understand the emotions, and so relate to a character whose complex personality may otherwise be lost in the difficulty of the original text.

Author Biographies

Marina Gerzic, University of Western Australia

Marina Gerzic is an alumna of the University of Western Australia. Her research analyzes the clash between early modern performance texts and youth culture, in particular the appropriation of Shakespeare by youth culture and the expropriation of youth culture in the manufacture and marketing of Shakespeare. Marina's recent publications include articles on Andy Griffiths's Just Macbeth! (in Locating Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Gabrielle Malcolm and Kelli Marshall, CSP, 2012) and Michael Almereyda's film adaptation Hamlet (in What is the Human? Australian Voices from the Humanities, ed. Liam Semler, Bob Hodge and Philippa Kelly, ASP, 2012).

Helen Balfour, University of Western Australia

Helen Balfour is an alumna of the University of Western Australia, graduating with honors in English Literature. Helen is working towards a Masters in Information Management and currently works as a librarian. Her research interests include Elizabethan Theatre, Shakespeare film adaptations, film theory, Renaissance English literature, and literary criticism about Shakespeare.

Issue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2015. Image: A hand with a gold bangle holds out a copy of King Lear.

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Published

2015-09-01

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2015): Fall/Winter

Section

Articles