Grade: 10/10

Masha Fedorova
Writing 2

Writing Project 3

Cover Letter

April 23, 2019

Dear Professor Fedorova,

Reading through my Writing Project 1 once more, I noticed that I’ve learned so much through

this course, even though I considered myself a pretty decent writing even before taking this class.

As for additional considerations I held throughout the writing of Writing Project 3, I have

enjoyed translating Shakespeare’s work and finding alternative themes was overall pretty fun!

Some stylistic choices I included in my WP3 were long sentences paired with single spaced text.

Had I been given more time, I think I would’ve elaborated more on the ending, but I am quite

content with how my Writing Project came out. Regarding the introduction of the course-

recommended readings within the text, I chose to analyze Dirk and Swales’ impact on my

writing style and understanding of the uses of genre.

Swales especially impacted my understanding of what a genre is and how it helps a group of

driven individuals come together and work as one, introducing me to various concepts such as

those of “discourse community” and “genre analysis”.

I deeply attend your review of my work, perhaps giving me feedback on whether or not my

explanatory essay was sufficient in explaining my literary choices. Was my explanation of how

the readings helped me accurate enough? Was it satisfactory? Commented [MOU1]: Hi Francesco! I greatly enjoyed
reading your work. Not only was the translation excellent,
but your essay was clear and well-organized. We already
talked about the translation a bit on Thursday, so I will keep
it short. I think that the way you translated the plot shows
Best wishes, your ability as a writer to understand conventions of
multiple genres and it shows that you are able to envision
what details are necessary and what details should be
Francesco Moulson eliminated.
As for your essay, this work demonstrates your ability to
PB6 Proposal: reflect on your own writing and to use evidence to support
your points.
Overall, you did a great job!
Ever since the dawn of the Hellenic times, a literary dichotomy was born giving shape to the

many genres that we use today: that of the art of theatre and that of written literature. For the

Ancient Greeks, these two practices were considered separate from one another, and theatre,

more specifically divided into comedy and tragedy, was a genre that was almost always recited

rather than written via script. The art of writing soon became prevalent in all of Greece’s great

philosophers starting from Plato’s transcription of Socrates’ ideas, and eventually, through the

influence of Latin authors such as Petronius, a first attempt at the novel was made. Throughout

history, written literature was impacted by countless intellectuals and eventually became what it

is today, giving birth to countless books, poems and other works of great importance while

theater eventually developed the opera actor into the movie star, creating the industry of film and

giving birth to cinematic genres, such as the musical.

However, the two currents were once made one through the genre of theatrical literature. This

genre of writing, which is most commonly known today as the genre of the “play”, was

introduced in the English-speaking world by William Shakespeare. To examine the roots of this

current and to further understand the complications of writing a play and its themes, I intend to
translate Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night's Dream” into a genre of modern writing, more

specifically that of the western novel. By completely capsizing the ambiance of the story all the

while trying not to alter the single events of the plot, I will get a better grasp of each character’s

motives and importance within the story. By preserving the individual traits of each character, I

intend to minimize my impact on the story and to create a coherent and interesting translation.

Perhaps the passage that I’m most interested in for now is that of Oberon, Puck and Titania’s

first encounter and dialogue. The absurdity of their actions, along with the fantasy undertone of

the story makes for an interesting conversion into the novel genre. Another reason that inspires

me to translate such opposite genres is their distance in time and their vastly antithetical set of

themes. I find it to be quite challenging to fit all characters into a completely different setting,

perhaps that of a western banker town or a mining facility in the Great Basin, however, in

conclusion, I do believe that adapting every part of the plot to the new environment will allow

me to comprehend the difficulties of conceiving the themes of the theatrical genre and the work

behind the writing of a modern novel.

Writing Project 3: Genre Translation

ACT II

SCENE I. A wood near Athens

Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers

OBERON
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON
Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?
TITANIA
Then I must be thy lady: but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.
OBERON
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
[…]
OBERON
Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my henchman.
TITANIA
Set your heart at rest:
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votaress of my order:
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON
How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA
Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
TITANIA
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.

Exit TITANIA with her train

“Well look who’s here…” said Oberon, his voice echoing in the dim night. The moon was high
and its rays pierced through the dust-stained windows of the brothel.
“I ain’t talking to you, Oberon. I said it once and I will not once more.” Titania proceeded to
make hand gestures to her amazons, implying her will for them to follow her.
“Beg ya to reconsider, dear Titania, fer’ I’m the one who spits the rules ‘round here.”
Oberon was a menacing man. Many legends spoke of him throughout the Wild West, some
stating he could run as fast as a horse, some claiming he could shoot from miles away and still
strike the heart. He always stood a bit slouched, as if he were unable to walk properly. His face
was bright red, as he was always in a slight state of inebriation. Titania often feared him. He had
beaten her countless times, breaking her cheekbone during a night of what was their first year of
marriage. But she had grown strong to her fears. That night she swore Oberon that she would
forever carry a gun, even in her sleep, and, had he laid hand on her once again, she would’ve
killed him.
“You’re my wife, wher’ya think yer’ runnin’ off to?” Oberon’s voice echoed in the loud.
“Screw you, Oberon. I know for a fact that you snuck away from the brothel with our Phillida!
The only reason you left Nevada was to come here for Hippolyta. But guess what, she’s
marrying the banker, you can’t do anything about it. They run this wretched town, keep to the
brothel!”
“You filthy bitch! Yer’ tellin me what to do when you left Perigouna out in the Great Basin after
that filthy banker had raped her? I know well you sleep with him at night. He screwed one of my
amazons without giving me a dime!! That fucker still owes me.”
Oberon threw his pint of beer into the wall, scattering glass all over the floor and staining the
carpets beneath. The amazons rushed to clean the mess.
“So, yer gonna give me that boy or what?”
The night before, Oberon had snuck into Hyppolita and the Banker’s house to kidnap their son.
He’d thought about it for year, his plan. He intended to kidnap Hyppolita as well and to run back
to Nevada, where he’d sell them to another trafficker and free himself from the debt that his
drugs had buried him into. The Train-trackers were on their way and they would’ve killed him
given the slightest chance. This was his only hope. The boy was locked by Titania in the
brothel’s basement, where the amazons were treating him for his wounds. Oberon had cut his ear
off and sent it to the banker in the hopes of collecting a quick ransom. He considered it payback
for the time he’d raped Perigouna.
“Get over it. From now on he is my property. I do not intend to play your dirty games Oberon,
not any longer. Me and Hyppolita used to be good friends back in the east. When we traveled
here she saved me from the train-trackers at Zabriskie Point. I can thank her that I am not a
whore today,” said Titania, slowly fading into the darkness in fear of what Oberon would do.
“How long are ya staying here for? What will happen when the banker finds out his kid was in
yer basement, huh?”
Oberon gently raised his hand from his lasso pocket, revealing a slightly bent knife.

A loud gunshot echoed in the heat of Death Valley.

Oberon lay on his side, blood and spit spewing out of his mouth. His legs were slightly
twitching. He could still breath but not enough, causing him to cough up more thick, blood,
darkened by years of cigars and dust.
Titania took a breath of relief. Oberon was dead.
She’d never thought she’d kill him this way.
Quickly Titania ran to the stall and shot Oberon’s horse dead to fabricate a midnight raid of the
brothel. She was afraid someone would accuse her. She mounted the brothel’s donkey, Bottom
and went for the horizon. Who’d ride a donkey into the desert? No one. People would have
thought that the train-trackers had come set the deal and took her to some other brothel to the
west. The amazons poured out of the tavern, finally free, like bats flying into the moonlight.

Explanatory Essay:

To fully place the essay in the correct context it is to be read in, I have to first clarify some of the

inner elements of the storyline and the personality of each character. As a stylistic choice, I have

made the decision to not include all elements of the plot with the same amount of clarity: a lot of

information is initially missing from the passage I translated from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer

Night's Dream”1, and, therefore, I deemed it necessary to omit most details of the antecedent

plot. In this essay, I wish to not only justify my stylistic and organizational choices, but to also

address these “missing details”.

In my western novel version, the events of “A Midsummer Night's Dream” take place in the

Great Basin desert of the western United States. Clearly it is not Ancient Greece, and the time of

the events differs as well. This version of the plot takes place between 1860 and 1875, during the

times of the western frontier and the conquering of the western American lands, an era of

cowboys, rusty mines, railroad construction and corrupt bankers setting up soon-to-be ghost

towns. More specifically, the setting of the events take place in a small brothel, named the

“Athens of the West,”, owned by Oberon, an ex-member of the train-trackers, men-and-drug

trafficking bandits of the Wwest. After confrontation over the unpaid debt Oberon owed to the

bandits, the old man fled from his home state of Nevada to join in marriage with Titania and set

up the brothel to make some money. Titania had reached the West from “the East” (Boston,
Massachusetts) in the hopes of earning gold money to save her father from terminal illness, but,

after being saved from the rape of the train-trackers by the banker’s family, had to move into

their town and work for him as repayment. The banker, Titania’s lover, and Hyppolita symbolize

the Monarchy, as they preside over the whole establishment and are rich and powerful. The

banker’s wife, Hyppolita, represents Theseus’s wife in the play, a woman often harassed by the

foolish fairy king Oberon who desires her for himself. The “amazons” are the workers or

“whores” of the brothel, and constantly follow their maiden, Hyppolita.

The amazon Phillida also represents Oberon’s desire, as he forces her to sleep with him to satisfy

his urges, while the amazon Perigouna was raped by the banker. However, since Titania is

secretly in love with the banker, she has spared him from the charges of the law and, to the day

of the events I narrated, the banker had never paid Oberon Perigouna’s price. Due to this reason,

the frightening cowboy Oberon decides to kidnap his son (the “changeling boy” protected by

Titania in the play) and to collect a ransom to escape a certain death by setting his debt with the

train-trackers.

Adapting every part of the plot to the new environment allowed me to comprehend the

difficulties of conceiving the themes of the theatrical genre and the work behind the writing of a

modern novel. However, this “modern” adaptation did come with its challenges: with the change

of the setting and time I had to give some of the characters personalities that differ from those of

the original play, all the while conserving the theatrical elements and plot twist of the story. This

is evident in Oberon’s serious and crude demeanor, which leads him to act more violently than
that of the foolish and childish fairy king. Titania is also more serious, but not as evil. She resorts

to killing her husband in a moment of panic, and, in the end, chooses to free her amazons.

The themes are also different: my version of the play’s events is darker, and includes the

problematic consequences of a society ruled by drug commerce and human trafficking. The

ending presents the uncertainty of Titania’s actions with a new dilemma: what happens next?

A key to my translation of Shakespeare’s play were the considerations held by Kerry Dirk in his

“Navigating Genres”2, especially those regarding the use of a genre to connect with a particular

audience..3 The key question, “who is this for?”, aided me in my considerations and stylistic

choice. Obviously, my adaptation is directed toward a more mature audience, with the use of

certain swear words and the gore of the description of Oberon’s death constellating the overall

dark theme of the western genre. Another consideration of Dirk that I found useful to apply in

my translation is that of the use of a certain lexis throughout the dialogues. With the use of

particular, western-themed words, such as “train-trackers”, and with the informality of Oberon’s

discourse, especially through the use of his accent, I was able to impart an overall western, land-

of-no-morals feeling to the adaptation, redefining it in the context of the new genre and

sacrificing some of the theatrical stylistic choices and phrases.

Lastly, the definition of “genre” itself in John Swales’ “Genre Analysis: English in Academic

and Research Settings”4 helped me compose this western version of the play.5 Through the

readings offered in class I got to know the meaning and the uses of a genre, how to impact the

reader and to construct their setting. The concepts of “discourse community” and “genre
analysis” along with the critical reading of these different categories of literature helped cement

my understanding of writing in general and, overall, aided me in the development of my

approach to writing. So many stylistic choices, along with new idioms and grammar rules have

not only allowed me to write all my assignments with satisfactory results, but, more generally,

they have ’ve completed me as a person.

1
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616. A Midsummer Night's Dream. New York :Signet Classic, 1998.
2
Kerry Dirk, “Navigating Genres”, Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing 1, 2010
3
Kerry Dirk, “Navigating Genres”, Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing 1, 2010
4
John Swales, “Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings”, Cambridge University
Press, 1990
5
John Swales, “Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings”, Cambridge University
Press, 1990