Inspiring Revisions: Shakespeare and the Present

Focusing on two contemporary Shakespearean revisions that belong respectively in the media and visual arts realms – Penny Woolcock’s BBC Macbeth on the Estate (1997) and Nalini Malani’s video installation Hamletmachine (2000) – the essay engages with the current debate on the notions of adaptation and revision, and reflects on the possibility to consider them in terms of ‘inspiration’. As revision emerges as a ripping off of the Shakespearean ‘matter’, the study analyzes how such dismemberment is performed in the translation of literature into other media, and reflects on how, if at all, the literary ‘lives on’ in its other, visual forms.