Influences of Victorian “Shakespeare” and “The Jews of the Orient” on the Translated Venit Vanit

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that translation is a process of adapting messages to produce a new work that is significantly different from the original work. The social and political contexts of the target audience, the characteristics of their language, and the translator play a role in making adaptation inevitable. This paper uses King Vajiravudh’s Venit Vanit, a translation of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, as a case study. This author believes that Venit Vanit is different from “the original work” because the translation was influenced by Victorian culture, which preferred elaborate settings and removed “bawdy” jokes. Moreover, the translation was influenced by the socio-political contexts in Siam. In the translation, for example, Shylock becomes a loan shark; this image is in line with that of “the Jews of the Orient” in the translator’s opinion.