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Whether you’ve encountered his celebrated verse-dramas (such as Whylah Falls or Québécité) or the lush, animated language of his poetry, it is not difficult to recognize George Elliott Clarke’s affinity for the genius of William Shakespeare. In this new work, Clarke borrows ... Read more
Whether you’ve encountered his celebrated verse-dramas (such as Whylah Falls or Québécité) or the lush, animated language of his poetry, it is not difficult to recognize George Elliott Clarke’s affinity for the genius of William Shakespeare. In this new work, Clarke borrows brazenly from and rewrites (The Bard’s very own working method) one of Shakespeare’s most contentious comedies, The Merchant of Venice, reinvigorating a play that on many points seems “retrograde politically and retarding dramatically”. The result is a spectacle of swinging lyricism that casts Jewish Shylock not as the villain, but as the victim of the ingrained bigotry of the Venetian State.
Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, at the beginning of the 1960s, George Elliott Clarke is a seventh-generation Africadian. He has published more than a dozen volumes of poetry and prose, including Whylah Falls and Execution Poems, an acclaimed novel George & Rue, and the celebrated opera, Beatrice Chancy. His many awards include the Governor General's Award for poetry and the Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award.
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