ABSTRACT
This essay focusses on the translation/adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays into Telugu. Beginning with Kandukuri’s Chamatkaara Ratnaavali, 1890 (A Comedy of Errors), through the 1950s, early 1960s and 70s, when Lakshmi Kanta Mohan translated and published twenty-three Shakespeare plays in simple, accessible Telugu, there was considerable activity in Telugu around the Bard. The essay discusses the value of the available Telugu translations of Shakespeare’s plays in terms of English Education in India, translations in other Indian languages (especially Hindi), issues of race, ‘moral values’, suitability of language and translational practices. The anthropophagic view on the improvement of the health of one literature from an infusion of ‘blood’ from another is the fascinating source from which the title of the essay emerged.
