Abstract

The study examines offensiveness as manifestation of patriarchy and construction of female identity, in four Greek versions of one of Shakespeare’s most renowned plays Romeo and Juliet (1597). The study examines shifts which reveal how gendered gaze is shaping female identity in the play. Τhe relative offensive value of the excerpts examined across four target versions creates a scale in the level of offensiveness favoured, according to the (etic) analysis and the respondents’ emic perspective. The latest translation is not the most offensive (as would have been expected, because it has been found that as time passes by offensiveness raises). This may be attributed to the female gaze of the latest translator who may be resisting gender-bias out of female solidarity. Analysis of the offensive value, which certain points in the play manifest, reveals how societal or theatrical conventions and gendered gaze construct patriarchy.

Keywords: gendered gaze, patriarchy, offensiveness, gender-bias, translating for the stage

1. Introduction

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most renowned tragedies, revolving around a pair of ‘star-crossed lovers’ in Verona, Italy. Their names have become prover­bial “signifying a certain kind of love and a certain kind of tragic destiny” (White 2001: 2). Bloom (2010), in the introduction to his study guide to Romeo and Juliet, suggests that Juliet is the first of Shakespeare’s vibrant female characters: “Juliet […] is the play’s triumph, since she inaugurates Shakespeare’s extraordinary procession of vibrant, life-enhancing women (2010: 7). Published in 1597, the play was heavily influenced by Arthur Brooke’s ‘The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet’ (1562). Shakespeare based the plot on the Italian tale, but he developed the storyline further giving voice to many minor characters.

The study focuses on these characters in the context of the play.  The question arises how the patriarchy of the time (which the characters are immersed in) may be rendered cross- and intra-culturally, shaping female identities. Shakespeare used informal language in the plays “[he] may deliberately set the tone of this language in direct contrast with that which is both more formal and elegant” (Blake 2009: 6) and in many instances his language seemed to be filled with sexual innuendos and allusions. Juliet is a radiant individual compromised with the patriarchal ideal of the time, which nurtured conservative and oppressive female gender views. “Masculine honor was a political issue throughout the period when Shakespeare was writing his tragedies and tragicomedies” (Wells 2000: 5), and misogynistic ideas often expressed in Romeo and Juliet were ubiquitous.

Kahn (1977) suggests that “for the sons and daughters of Verona the feud constitutes socialization into patriarchal roles and “phallic violence on behalf of their fathers” (1977: 6), while it linked “sexual intercourse with aggression and violence against women, rather than pleasure and love” (1977: 6) The perspective suggests that perhaps offensiveness would have been of paramount importance in the interpretation of the play. Women were seen as ‘weaker vessels’ by men, born to bear children and obliged to ‘fall backward’ for their husbands, who viewed them as objects of pleasure as seen in many exchanges between males in the play. Women in Verona did not get an extension on their childhood like men did. They had to wed whoever their father chose for them and become mothers fulfilling their ultimate goal as members of society. One of the miracles of Shakespeare's tragedies is how we can learn to love a male figure, “when he suffers, a man whom we disliked” (Jorgensen 1985: 8), despite their heinous behaviour at times. The same cannot be said about the patriarchal ideal they represent.               

The paper aims at identifying gendered gaze and the use of sexual innuendos as a manifestation of patriarchy in four Greek target versions of Romeo and Juliet. Gendered gaze is considered at two levels: (a) at the level of fictional characters (horizontally, how men and women perceive their roles in the context of the play and how they are made to communicate) and (b) at the level of translator gendered gaze (vertically: how the gender of translators may have affected the way they perceive their role in the transfer situation). Thus, the study chose three versions by male translators to examine how offensiveness develops over the years and a version by a female translator). These were target versions by Demetrios Vikelas (1896), by Vasilis Rotas (1989), by Errikos Bellies (1993) and by Despina Agelidou (2005). The study analyses offensive language used by male characters in the play, shaping female sexuality.

2. Literature review

2.1 Translating taboo items in the selected versions

Translation methods of classical texts can range from literal to the most creative (Hardwick 2009: 24). “Access to and appropriation of the texts has been ideologically loaded (in terms of power relations, class, gender and ethnicity) and their translations have been used to entrench ideas as well as to extend and liberate them” (Hardwick 2009:34). Patriarchal societal norms seem to abound in the literary world and, as Cameron (1992) notes, language is more often than not, “excluding, insulting or trivializing women” (1992:11). In Romeo and Juliet, mishandling the female identity is already there, without any translator intervention.

The earliest TTa version (1896), following the years of the Turkish occupation, was intended “to educate the subjugated Greeks, and later, following independence, to shape the identity of the liberated nation” (Connolly and Bacopoulou-Halls 2009: 421). Taboo items used by Shakespeare raised the offensive value of the ST, which was neither feasible nor accepted in late 19th century conservative Greece. Roidis (Greek scholar 1836–1904) a prominent litterateur of 19th century Greece suggested how translators should translate literature: they should be “paying particular attention to the linguistic idiom of the target language and trying to steer a middle course between the popular and purist forms of Greek” (Connolly and Bacopoulou-Halls 2009: 421).

The translation practices in TTa-d display a tension between being faithful to the source text (aiming at adequacy) and doing justice to the target context (aiming at acceptability). Thus, the question arises how translators handled offensive and threatening items diachronically. Do translators minimize or augment the offensive and threatening value of taboo items? As seen in TTa, the items which signified impoliteness were toned down and even completely omitted by TTa translator, evidently due to constraints in performability. Performability may increase “the tension between the need to relate the target text to its source (the adequacy factor), and the need to formulate a text in the target language (the acceptability factor)” (Toury 1980: 29). Acceptability constraints of the Romeo and Juliet translations seem to have continued during the 20th century Greece. TTb translator seems to follow TTa with minute differences in the gender and phallic violence portrayal. Mavilis (Greek scholar 1860–1912), a poet and composer at the time, “believed that a translation should not be evaluated on the basis of a comparison with the original but in terms of its own conceptual coherence and formal appropriateness” (Connolly and Bacopoulou-Halls 2009: 424). Anderman (2009) draws attention to problems following from too literal approaches to a source play: she suggests, for instance, that “slang and terms of endearment or of abuse, […] may provide an inappropriate audience response when rendered too literally […] Although taboo words are likely to be universal, the time and place of their use may vary from language to language (2009: 93). Brown and Levinson (1978) confirm that variation in culture induces variation in what is perceived as offensive and/or appropriate and that is reflected in the way taboo topics are adjusted in TTs to achieve pragmatic equivalence while remaining polite. Baker (2011) adds that the most common taboo subjects (sex, religion, defecation) are not necessarily taboo to the same degree in every context:

Whatever the norms of polite behaviour in the target culture, it is important to note that in some translation contexts, being polite can be far more important than being accurate. A translator may decide to omit or replace whole stretches of text which violate the reader’s expectations of how a taboo subject should be handled – if at all – in order to avoid giving offence. (2011:250)                                                               

TTa-TTd translators were concerned with reception of offensive items, hence their enhancing,  mitigating offensiveness or complete omission of it, in agreement with conventions of performability over the years. Evidently, the social and political context of Greece played a major role in establishing performability and its more conservative forms were deemed the appropriate ones for introducing the play to the Greek audience, due to the less liberated attitude at the time of production. TTc and TTd translators are also concerned with reception and adjust the offensiveness of the play to today’s tolerant audiences, as the data will show.

2.2 Impoliteness and patriarchy

Research on relational work in interactional pragmatics and in drama is rich and prolific. Culpeper (2001) examined how politeness and impoliteness are used strategically in language to shape and reveal characters in literature. Verbal and non-verbal behaviour are manipulated, in drama and other texts, to construct intended social roles.  The present study examines how gendered characters are shaped in target versions of a play and how characterization may change over time.

Offensiveness and impoliteness in drama are phenomena which may realize patriarchy and crude attitude towards women addressees or women’s own crude attitude towards themselves in the context of patriarchy. Bousfield and Locher (2008) confirm that a lot of research would be necessary for understanding the workings of impoliteness and that studying the relational dynamics between communicators contributes to understanding the phenomenon:

Several researchers in fact point out that we are only at the beginning of our understanding of the phenomenon (e.g. Bousfield; Culpeper; Terkourafi). Impoliteness, even if most generally seen as face-aggravating behaviour in a specific context, clearly involves the relational aspect of communication in that social actors negotiate their positions vis-à-vis each other.

Thus, the study examines the relational dynamics between fictional characters in the play to highlight the workings of impoliteness connoting patriarchal ideology in translated drama, thus enriching the data types which may inform the study of impoliteness.

English-Greek translation and im/politeness, in various genres, is a furtile area of research and has lately attracted the attention of scholars (Sidiropoulou 2020, 2021, Locher and Sidiropoulou 2021, Pollali and Sidiropoulou 2021, Sidiropoulou and Borisova 2022, Dayter, Locher and Messerli 2023, Karavelos and Sidiropoulou 2024, Sidiropoulou 2024). Results showed that im/politeness has been transferred very differently across English-Greek over the years. The present study examines gendered views of female identities.

The study also suggests that ‘gender performativity’ (i.e., gender identity being a social construct, Butler 1990) is crucial in shaping fe/male identities in a patriarchal context, at the time when the target versions appeared. Socially constructed gender stereotypes seem to shape the fe/male identities assumed in the versions of the play.

3. Methodology

Αs suggested, the study investigates manifestation of patriarchy in the play through rendition of offensiveness related to construction of female identity in four Greek target versions of Romeo and Juliet in chronological order.

A selection criterion was that translators should be both male and female, hoping that the gender of translator may make a difference in the way female identities were depicted in the target versions, and versions should be some years apart. The study focused on instances of characterization which varied across the four versions.

 Etic and emic approaches (the researcher’s view vs. respondents’ view, respectively) to the data analyze variation in the four versions. First, a comparative reading of the four target versions of the play identified translation variation in portraying manifestation of patriarchy and the female character identity. The study focused on as many taboo items as possible and examined how they are treated in the target versions, how men address women and vice versa, what is the interpersonal distance between them and their offensiveness in discourse. The intension was to potentially trace patriarchal ideologies in the behaviours of both male and female characters.

The study used a questionnaire addressing 10 English-Greek bilingual respondents who were expected to use their insight into Greek to evaluate meaning-making in the four target versions. They were translation postgraduates of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with an acute understanding of semantic and pragmatic differences in discourse, but they were not aware of the aim of the study and the questionnaire. They were asked (see Appendix) to rank the presented target text (TTa-d) options in terms of their level of impoliteness and aggression towards a female face. Questionnaire findings seemed to confirm the data analysis and are presented in section 5.

4. Data analysis

The section presents and analyzes instances of the play where a threatening item occurs, referring to females, in humorous or non-humorous extracts. Examples first present the source text (ST) extract followed by each one of the target text (TT) fragments, with the relevant item in bold, and each TT version followed by a backtranslation (BT) into English.

In example 1, the nurse ends her speech with an anecdote her husband referred to, when Juliet was a child, which “masterfully epitomizes the way in which woman's subjugation to her role as wife and mother, in the patriarchal setting, is made to seem integral with nature itself” (Kahn 1977:14).

It seems that in all translation versions the sexual innuendo is somewhat intelligible. TT1a ‘σιχαμένον’ (nasty) is more derogatory than TT1b item ‘στριγγλίτσα’ (little hellcat), rendering ST item ‘pretty wretch’.  TT1c ‘κατεργάρα’ (mischievous) and TT1d ‘πονηρούλα’ (sly), which in Greek showcase that the little girl is fully aware of the sexual joke made at her expense and is fully accepting her compromised sexual identity, which the ST tries to convey.

Example 2 shows Benvolio and Mercutio entering the Capulet orchard looking for Romeo. Mercutio is trying to insult him, in order to force him out of his hiding spot, by talking about the relationship between Romeo and Rosaline, his ex-love interest. The description of the first translation omits the more intimate part of the picture of Rosaline Mercutio conjures, while TTb renders it with a more appropriate and less offensive phrase. TTc renders ’scarlet’ as ‘κατακόκκινα’ (scarlet red) which paints a more vivid and sensual picture. ST item ‘quivering thigh’ is faithfully rendered in TT2a and TT2b. However, TT2c item ‘που τόσο ωραία πηγαινοφέρνει’ ([her hips] which she so prettily moves back and forth) is open to ironic interpretation and assigns sexual agency to the woman in question that is missing from the earlier texts. In TT2d ‘για τους γοφούς της που τόσο ωραία ξέρει να τους λικνίζει’ (her hips, she so excellently knows how to sway) is not necessarily sexual, it can be stylish, as well.  Moreover, the latter two versions fully transfer the phrase ‘And the demesnes that there adjacent lie’ with the sexual connotations of Rosaline’s intimate parts conveyed by the ST. TT2a omits this part, whilst TT2b renders it as “όμορες χώρες” (bordering places), which conceals the degrading gloss of the item.

Im/politeness theory can account for such instances of impoliteness. The instance of the hips ‘που τόσο ωραία πηγαινοφέρνει’ (which she so prettily moves back and forth) is an instance of Culpeper’s (1996: 356-357) sarcasm or mock politeness, namely, a Face Threatening Act (FTA) performed with the use of politeness strategies that are “obviously insincere”.

Example 3 continues Mercutio’s discourse in the Montague courtyard. TT3c seems to be more sexually explicit, using the play on words: at the beginning, it is ambiguous whether TTc item ‘μήπως του σηκωθεί’ (in case it rises) concerns his penis or his disposition. TT3a/b do not leave any room for further interpretation and TT3d also does not carry any ambiguity alluding to some sexual innuendo.

Example 4 is the final part of Mercutio’s lewd discourse in the courtyard, in search of Romeo. Mercutio’s sexual comments become extremely bawdy when he likens Rosaline to a meddler fruit, which resembles the female genitals. The ‘popep’rin pear’ on the other hand resembles male genitals and as Rampone (2011) suggests it “provides Mercutio with more double entendres concerning sexual intercourse and a man’s body, with the pun on ‘pop her in.’… Male and female sexuality are ubiquitous in this passage” (2011: 58). The whole picture he conjures in the reader’s mind becomes sexually suggestive. TT4a ignores part of the ST (“As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. Romeo, that she were, O, that she were/An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!”), eliminating sexual explicitness. TT4b does not omit anything and is the most faithful rendition of the ST, but it does not convey the underlying sexual innuendo.

The latest versions render the sexual innuendo much more prominently using highly offensive language and rhyming to enhance the offensive effect. TT4d “να γίνεις αχλάδι σκληρό και να μπεις μέσα της” (I wish for you to become a hard pear and get inside her) is also sexually suggestive but is less offensive. All questionnaire respondents suggested that the item attacked the female identity most strongly as an expression of Mercutio’s indignation.

In example 5, Mercutio is making fun of a gentleman of the finest quality while mimicking their splendid manners. ST item ‘whore’ is rendered as TT5a ‘ἑταίρα’ (courtesan) and TT5b ‘αποτέτοια’ (what‒d’you‒call‒her), which carry the lowest offensive value towards the female character. TT5c is much more offensive and by using the lower tenor item μούρλια (delicious), it echoes male talk and a constant search for sexual satisfaction. TT5d is not as offensive.

In example 6, the nurse is defending her integrity after Mercutio’s characterization and in doing so, she is demeaning other women, showcasing the internalized misogyny of the patriarchal society. As Blake notes, “[t]he name Jill was a common name for a woman (as in the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill), often used deprecatingly” (2009: 188). Gradually, the STa item ‘flirt‒gills’ is rendered more offensively: TT6a rendition loosely translates into ‘I’m not one of those girls he surrounds himself with’, TT6b into ‘mistresses’, while TT6c translates into ‘slutty whores’. TT6d item ‘cheap women’ is more conservative.

All examples seem to implement Culpeper’s (1996) negative politeness strategies, at least in some of the versions. These strategies are ‘scorn or ridicule’, ‘be contemptuous’, ‘not treat the other properly’, ‘belittle the other’, ‘invade the other’s space’ (literally or metaphorically).

In addition, analysis shows that offensiveness is enhanced over the years (as in TTa-c), except in TTd, which although more recent is not as offensive as TTc, painting more ‘decent’ female identities. The next section elicits assessment of offensiveness by lay people. Participants are asked to provide a ranking of the offensive options favoured in versions TTa-d and justify their choices where possible.

5. Questionnaire results

The questionnaire intended to elicit respondents’ view on the pragmatic potential of certain options, which varied across versions. It asked respondents to rank TT items, by assigning a priority number to each one of the available fragments (1 for the most offensive version, 2 for the next most offensive option etc.), per example, in order to assess the offensiveness which the options carry, particularly the ones which shape female identities; offensiveness would enhance the implication of a patriarchic context, as  it would signal disrespect for females. Respondents were native speakers of Greek, postgraduate students of translation, in the Department of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and produced valid answers.

Respondents suggested the following values per version and the total marks each version received is indicative of the relative awareness of patriarchal conventions the versions display. Table 1 shows the marks respondents assigned to the versions, indicating their relative average offensiveness.

Table 1. Option ranking for offensiveness, per respondent

The relative offensive value of the four versions creates a gradation, confirmed by respondents’ views. The lower marks the version has been assigned, the more offensive it is: ‘c’ (1993) is the most offensive version (65 marks), ‘a’ (1896) carries the lowest offensiveness (184 marks), probably because some of the options are obsolete and do not carry connotative meaning for present day audiences. ‘b’ was more offensive than ‘a’ (175) and ‘d’ (169) was more offensive than ‘b’, but less offensive than ‘c’. The reason why the earlier versions are less offensive may be that societies were more conservative in the way they used offensiveness and because present day audiences may be missing the connotative gloss of certain obsolete items. The question arises why version ‘d‘, the most recent version, is not the most offensive.

6. Discussion: the translators’ fe/male gaze

The assumption has been that the most recent translation of the play would be the most offensive, since modern society is more accepting and liberated as far as taboo items and offensive language is concerned (Pollali and Sidiropoulou 2021). Modern Greek and English target versions of the ancient Greek play ‘Lysistrata’ also show that recent versions, both Greek and English, are more tolerant to offensiveness (Karavelos and Sidiropoulou 2024). TTc seems to unveil and enhance sexual innuendos, which are likely to be favoured in men’s talk, echoing the patriarchal context of Shakespeare’s time, which degraded women; TTc adopts an overt and highly impolite attitude towards female characters, encouraging offensive discourse, which seems to translate into a potentially livelier dramatization. TTc, produced at the end of the 20^th century, showcases a more liberated modern society with a high tolerance to taboo issues. By contrast, TTd, despite being published in early 21^st century, does not appear to have as high tolerance to offensiveness, as TTc does. Questionnaire findings confirmed that TTd is less offensive and not equally echoing patriarchy, as TTc did.

The question is why the latest version is less offensive than the previous one. It is probably the translator’s ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1977) that triggers the difference in offensiveness between TTc and TTd. The translator of TTd is a female translator, Despina Agelidou, who may be resisting gender-bias out of female solidarity. Besides, the fact that TTd version is more low-key and less impolite, compared to TTc, may be triggered by internalization of a socially constructed gendered behaviour. TTd translator restrains from utilizing an extremely degrading vocabulary when referring to females. Feminist ideologies may have permeated Agelidou’s work so as to provide less room for sexism, although I do not wish to suggest that women translators cannot raise offensiveness to required levels, if intended.

If gender is a social construction, as Butler suggested in her book ‘Gender Trouble’ (1990), translators should become aware of what ‘gender performativity’ may entail, in target contexts, and shape characters accordingly. ‘Gender performativity’, a term coined by Butler (1990), describes the ways in which individuals internalize the socially expected gender norms and act according to the social construct of gender. TTc seems to eloquently reproduce present-day socially constructed gender stereotypes and utilizes the culturally available repertoire of options, for dirty language.

Out of Culpeper’s (1996: 356-357) negative impoliteness strategies, TTc explicitly damages the ‘face’ of the person referred to, e.g., by applying the strategies ‘scorn or ridicule’, ‘be contemptuous’, ‘not treat the other properly’, ‘belittle the other’, ‘invade the other’s space (literally or metaphorically)’ etc.

Theatre favours the ‘communication’ ethics: the message has to be communicated and audience response should be immediate, for the translated version to be successful.  As the communication norm is a top priority in the theatre, handling profanity is part of the job and female translators may need to feel free to exceed conventions, when necessary, which assumes both training and education (Kelly and Martin 2009: 294-300).

Translation studies have focused on the way translation may impact gender construction (von Flotow 1997, 2009), whether under the influence of the media in modern-day societies (Buhler 2002) or not. The present study has provided further evidence that identity shaping in translated theatrical/literary texts depends on the societal expectations and politeness values at the time of staging. A thorough analysis of the offensive value which certain points in the play manifest, across the four Greek target versions of Shakespeare’s prolific play Romeo and Juliet, reveal how societal conventions (Appelbaum 1997) and gendered gaze construct patriarchy and female identity in target environments.

Gender solidarity may be an overriding factor, resisting the tendency for degrading female identities in the patriarchal context of the play: this may be concluded in TTd, where the translator was female and the offensiveness in shaping patriarchal relations lowers, in a context which enjoys offensiveness.

Implications of the study relate to how acceptability may be achieved on stage, to inform translation training contexts. The findings could also concern studies regarding factors affecting theatrical outcomes. Last but not least, translated theatre may mirror belief systems which circulate in society at the time of staging.

About the author(s)

Dionysia Nikoloudaki received aΒΑ in EnglishLanguage and Literature from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athensand her MA in "English Language Linguistics and Translation"(Specialization 'Translation Studies and Interpreting') from the English Department of the same University. She is working as an English teacherand her interests liein combining translationwith second language teaching.

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