‘Putting new wine in old bottles’: Angela Carter and the Renewal of Literary Canons.The Case of “Overture and Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Abstract

[Abstract] In “Overture and Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” included in Black Venus (1985), Angela Carter provides a brilliant free adaptation of William Shakespeare’s well-known comedy in order to censure already obsolete patriarchal and masculine principles. Taking as the focal point the figure of Golden Herm and its relations with the other characters in the story, especially Titania, Oberon, and Puck, this essay attempts to analyse Angela Carter’s zeal for adapting old stories and conventions to nowadays thinking. The British novelist proposes an active reading of the play that goes beyond traditional sexist prejudices and manages to call into question the validity of these masculine principles. After all, as she herself explained with the metaphor, it is a matter of “putting new wine in old bottles.”