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Article published In: English Text Construction
Vol. 10:1 (2017) ► pp.59–77

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Travelling through the centuries

The intertextual relationship between Shakespeare in Love, Molière and Young Goethe in Love

 | University of Granada |
Published online: 15 June 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.10.1.04ste
The paper analyses the influence of John Madden’s biopic Shakespeare in Love (GB/USA, 1998) on Molière (FR, 2007) and Young Goethe in Love (GER, 2010) by having a closer look at the intertextual relationship between the films. For this, it considers external and internal connections, referring to intertexts for the promotion and marketing as well as the use of content-based conventions for biopics on writers, literary sources and anachronisms. The analysis reveals that, although the French and German films take Shakespeare in Love as a source of inspiration, they rewrite the approach and transform it for an individual representation of their national subjects. This double effect points to a different, alternative strategy for adapting the literary life of the canonical author.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Intertextuality
  • 3.Promoting the biopic
  • 4.Conventions for Brit-lit biopics
  • 5.Intertextuality in the films studied
    • 5.1 Shakespeare in Love
    • 5.2 Molière
    • 5.3 Young Goethe in Love
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (27)
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