Hamlet uzmyslowiony/Sensuous Hamlet

Abstract

Sosnowska, Monika. Hamlet uzmystowiony (Sensuous Hamlet). Lodz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego, 2013. Pp. 201.Today, the range of academic approaches applied to the study of senses has reached beyond areas limited to psychological inquiry. Sensuality has become an object of study for scholars representing various academic disciplines, proving them to be both challenging and significant terrains for numerous, often interdisciplinary academic analyses. Senses have, therefore, begun to be seen as cultural formations which are subject to considerable changes in time and a topic which requires much broader attention and understanding. Senses, therefore, also constitute the fundamental topic of Monika Sosnowska's book Sensuous Hamlet, a study of cinematic versions of Hamlet, in which the author applies interdisciplinary perspective to examine the way in which senses are employed in one of the most famous Shakespearian plays and how these references to senses are used in a number of cinematic adaptations of Hamlet.Significantly, the word "play" appearing in the title of the book may not only prove to be a linguistic challenge for even the most seasoned translators, but also reveal the twofold nature of the play. Hamlet is a play which requires the employment of our five senses. It is, according to Sosnowska, sensuous; filled with sensory imagery. In her book, the author seems to be achieving two goals at once. While making a vital contribution to the development of Shakespearian studies in Poland, she also succeeds in contributing to the discussion concerning sensory studies, an area which still remains fairly unfamiliar both to academics and non-academics dealing with theatre worldwide. Two core goals around which the author organizes her book are: to prove why Hamlet is sensuous by showing how Shakespeare uses senses and to show how late twentieth century film directors make use of the senses in their cinematic adaptations of the play. The author studies three most famous movie versions of the play: Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 adaptation, Kenneth Branagh's 1996 version and Michael Almereyda's 2000 film. Crucially, while conscious of the fact that it is inevitable that versions remain in constant dialogue with each other, the author makes sure she precisely pinpoints those aspects of the movies that render the versions different. It is these differences in the way senses are used in the adaptations that are of particular interest for Sosnowska.Understandably, the scope of the research undertaken by the author makes it difficult for her to proceed immediately to analysis of particular filmic adaptations of the Shakespearian play. To make her theoretical apparatus academically legitimate, as well as to give the reader a much wider and more systematized perspective on the subject at hand, she decided to devote opening section of the work to considerations of the evolution of cultural understanding of the senses. It is by reading these initial chapters of the book that we learn to what lengths an inquisitive academic has to go in order to obtain a properly-crafted and necessarily interdisciplinary approach if she is to deal with the understanding of the role of senses in culture in the most wholesome manner. Therefore, well-thought through and clear division into chapters leaves even the most demanding reader of the book convinced that the author is conscious of a wide plethora of theoretical discussions concerning cultural studies and makes the ordinary reader well-equipped with theoretical background to understand what constitutes the second aim of the book, namely, analyses of filmic adaptations of Hamlet.Especially noteworthy are titles of the chapters and the sub-sections. Demanding, and not entirely devoid of heavyweight academic terminology, they are at the same time, witty and encouraging for readers. They demonstrate great ease with which the author plays not only with language but also with literary tradition presenting, at the same time, a considerable problem for translators. …