Hamlet Goes Legit : Archaeology, Archive and Transformative Adaptation in Sons of Anarchy (FX 2008-2014)

Víctor Huertas-Martín

doi:10.6018/ijes.490781

Authors

Víctor Huertas-Martín University of Valencia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6018/ijes.490781

Keywords: Series, Allusions, Paratexts, Sources, Adaptations, Tragedies, Histories, Archive, Transformation

Abstract

Using Shakespeare’s criticism and archival theory as lenses, this article enlarges understandings of the interconnections between a complex television series and Shakespeare. Forming a Shakespearean archive, Sons of Anarchy (SOA), based on Hamlet and other plays by Shakespeare, is packed with Shakespearean allusions, rather than citations, whose impact in the overall work is yet to be explored. Shakespearean formations, identifiable in the series’ para-texts, episodes, and transmedia materials, add political weight to SOA. This intertextuality invites us to regard Shakespeare’s influence in complex television as transformative.

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Author Biography

Víctor Huertas-Martín , University of Valencia

He was a theatre artist while studying English Philology (UAM). Subsequently, he studied for a Masters Degree in Literary and Theatre Studies in the European Context (UNED) and a PhD in Literary Linguistic Studies (UNED), paying attention to the hybridity of artistic languages on TV screen adaptations of Shakespeare.

His research has resulted in 14 scientific articles (in journals such as Literature/Film Quarterly, Sederi Yearbook, Shakespeare Bulletin, Cahiers élisabethains, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, etc.), two book chapters, the co-edition of a volume of essays entitled Considering Television Series as Literature (for Palgrave Macmillan) and the coordination of two issues of the popular science journal Viceversa. He has also been a visiting researcher at research centres such as University College London, Birmingham University-Shakespeare Institute, Franklin Institute, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and, currently, at the archives of the Consorcio-Patronato de la Ciudad Monumental de Mérida.

He is a member of the research groups "Studies in Intermediality and Intercultural Mediation" (Complutense University of Madrid), "AMICCUS" (Franklin Institute) and "ELITE-PAC: Escrituras Literarias: Patrimonio y Actualidad" (University of Valencia). He is also a member of the research projects "EMOTHE: Theatre of the 16th and 17th Centuries" (University of Valencia) and "Aglaya: New Forms of Myth" (Complutense University of Madrid). For the former, he is collaborating in the creation of the European theatre database and is the translator and editor of the first Spanish version of Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam. Additionally, he is also coordinator of the Film Studies Panel of the Anglo-American Association of English Studies (AEDEAN).

Having worked in a number of universities, he is currently an Assistant Lecturer at the English and German Philology Department of the University of Valencia.

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