Two book chapters on Shakespeare and music, written by Prof. Katrine Wong from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH), have been published in a cutting-edge volume, The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music.
Prof. Wong, the only scholar from Asia featured in the 1064-page volume, is responsible for two chapters. In ‘Gender and Music in Shakespeare’, she provides an overview of gendered designs of musical episodes in Shakespearean plays and the corresponding gendered responses within the playtexts. She argues that textual interpretation of ‘male music’ and ‘female music’, informed by conventional early modern context, yields seemingly clear-cut expectations of and attitudes towards musical performance on Shakespeare’s stage; however, modern stage productions have complicated and, at times, subverted the dichotomy. Wong’s dramaturgical reading of musical episodes in selected plays offers readers an opportunity to understand gender relativity and performativity in Shakespearean characters.
‘Mandopop and Cantopop’, with a focus on Shakespeare in China, begins with a summary of the history of Chinese perceptions, responses and (re)creations of Shakespeare. Wong discusses mass-market musical responses to Shakespeare and his works in contemporary China and investigates how popular musical forms and modes, in particular Mandopop and Cantopop, have embraced and given new shape and voice to Shakespearean works.
The Handbook showcases the latest international research into the captivating and vast subject of the many uses of music in relation to Shakespeare’s plays and poems, extending from the Bard’s own time to the present day. See more at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-shakespeare-and-music-9780190945145