Shakespeare and YA Lit: A New Genre for an Old Favorite

This post ties together my focus research on Shakespeare adaptations in young adult literature. If you haven't read my blog before, you should start here!

Research Question and Thesis
I started this project with a question rather than a thesis. That question (as found in my Focus Project post) is What elements of Shakespeare can be successfully translated into the young adult experience?

This served me well as I researched, and I've finally come to an arguable thesis: Teen lit adaptations of Shakespeare can make the Bard more accessible to young adults, adding to--rather than detracting from--Shakespeare's original texts.

In order to prove this thesis, I took a look at three types of sources: the Bard's original texts, specifically A Midsummer Night's Dream; several YA lit adaptations; and scholarly articles about YA Shakespeare.

Analyzing Original Texts
I read several Shakespeare plays this semester, and I chose to look closely at A Midsummer Night's Dream. As I read, I looked for themes that would appeal to teenagers reading the play or that authors could use when adapting the play into novel form. Two themes that I found were frustrated love and female friendship. I discovered that the Bard's plays are full of ideas that teenagers can appreciate at their unique stage in life; however, because the language is difficult, teens may need help exploring Shakespeare's themes. YA literature is one way that teens can have greater access to Shakespeare's stories and themes.

Self-Blog-Evaluation

Using the same criteria from Dr. B that I used when reviewing Caroline's blog, I'm going to take a look at my own blog. I reference Mandy's review throughout--she gave me some great feedback and I made adjustments accordingly.

The Author of A Loser's Guide

Hey, remember back when I did a review of The Loser's Guide to Life and Love? Well, tonight I had the pleasure of meeting the author, Ann Cannon! She and Betsy Burton, owner of the King's English bookstore in SLC, came to Rick Walton's publishing class to talk about the children's book industry and answer our questions. She was super nice and funny.

After class, I asked her about why she decided to write a modern teen lit adaptation of Midsummer Night's Dream. She said that she was teaching a class where she had students write a paper bridging a YA novel with a classic (I did a similar project--we both got the idea/assignment from Chris Crowe) and she thought, hey, I should try my hand at a novel that can be bridged to Shakespeare. Voila! Just like I mentioned in my last post, this book serves as a great bridge to MND. It was really fun to meet the author of a book that I've read and studied so recently. And hey, maybe I'll do a Shakespeare adaptation myself someday.

(Note to Dr. B: please don't grade my blog yet! I'm working on my hub post and evaluation but I had an exhausting day today that felt something like this and I'm going to bed right now.)

Blog Review: The Globe

This is a review of Caroline's blog, The Globe, and specifically her hub post and research focus. I'm basing this review on Dr. B's evaluation criteria.

Preliminary Hub Post

As we near the end of the semester and the end of this research project, it's time to pull in all the threads of my inquiry and see what I've discovered as I've explored Shakespeare and YA literature.

Research Question and Thesis
I started this project with a question rather than a thesis. That question (as found in my Focus Project post) is "What elements of Shakespeare can be successfully translated into the young adult experience?" This served me well as I researched, and I've finally come to an actual thesis: Teen lit adaptations of Shakespeare can make the Bard more accessible to young adults, adding to--rather than detracting from--Shakespeare's original texts. 


Primary sources
I wanted to read multiple books on Shakespeare, listed in my Focus Project post.
I originally planned to read multiple books based on each play as I planned in this post for The Tempest, but then I changed my plans to read one book for each play.
I reviewed Ariel and The Loser's Guide to Life and Love. I also read Dating Hamlet and The Wednesday Wars, but I didn't have the time to write up reviews.

Textual analysis
I looked in-depth at A Midsummer Night's Dream and made two posts about teen themes that could be used in YA adaptations. The first was about frustrated love and the second was about female friendship.

Scholarly Resources
I checked out a couple of books about Shakespeare and YA literature, which I overviewed here. I followed up by reviewing several articles, one comparing Hamlet to Bridge to Terabithia and another about Harry Potter and Shakespeare as a storyteller.

Book Review: The Loser's Guide to Life and Love

This book review is the second in a series of reviews of teen novels that adapt Shakespeare. As I explore what adaptations can do to enhance the Shakespeare experience for teens, I look at how A. E. Cannon's spinoff translates the text of A Midsummer Night's Dream into a modern setting.

Please note: Book reviews will contain spoilers, so if you want to read the book you might want to do so before reading my review.

Summary
Ed works with his friend Scout at a video rental store where he doesn't get enough respect even to afford him his own name badge. He and Scout spend boring work hours inventing a past for "Sergio" and Ed often wishes that he could be cool like made-up Sergio rather than being a boring nerd. So when beautiful Ellie comes into the store, Ed doesn't clarify the name badge mistake. He becomes Sergio, the suave Brazilian man who loves to cook and "laughs in the face of danger...[and] never sweats."

Meanwhile, Ed's nerdy friend Quark is falling for Scout. But Ellie is nursing a heartbreak of her own, and Scout acknowledges to herself that she has feelings for Ed. All the lies are stripped away one by one, and everything comes to a head at Ali and the Warrior Queen's Midsummer Eve Celebration.

Shakespeare's Legacy in YA Literature II

Hey, so I did some scholarly research again. That was unexpected. This time I looked at a few of the articles in the book Reimagining Shakespeare for Children and Young Adults, mentioned in this post. You can take a look at the first Shakespeare's Legacy post here.

The last article I looked at discussed how Shakespearean themes manifest in modern YA lit, looking particularly at Bridge to Terabithia. Two of the articles that I read continued that train of thought. (I read some other articles from this book, and they are interesting but don't pertain to my subject.)

The first article is "Harry Potter and the Shakespearean Allusion" by Miranda Johnson-Haddad. Woo-hoo, Harry Potter! Everything is better with Harry Potter. Even the Doctor thinks that Shakespeare needs some good ol' J. K. Anyway, the article is about moments in the HP books that parallel moments in Richard III and Titus Andronicus. Unfortunately, the article was written when only four books were out, so some of the speculation is outdated and the examples could be better. However, the main point of the article is still relevant: Harry Potter, like Shakespeare, is concerned with "the relationship--the affinity, even--between good and evil" (168). Modern YA lit builds on themes that are explored dynamically in Shakespeare.