Appropriations of Shakespeare's King Lear in Three Modern North American Novels
This thesis examines the creative appropriation of Shakespeare in theory and practice. It is based on close readings of King Lear alongside three appropriations of the play in works of fiction by three North American women writers: Jane Smiley, Anne Tyler, and Margaret Atwood. The aim is to demonstrate how a ‘palimpsestic’ reading, i.e. a reading in which the reader oscillates between ‘pre-text’ a
