Trans textual Shakespeare: The Arabic and Persian Pre-texts of Romeo and Juliet is dedicated to
Persian and Arabic re source texts of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (ca.1595). It starts off
from the thesis that authoritative source studies about William Shakespeare have intentionally
or latently ignored the influence of the Arabic and Persian pre-texts of major tragedies and
also comedies. Such studies have focused primarily on the European sources of Shakespeare's
work. This indicates that Shakespearean source study is implicated in the Western cultural and
literary hegemony which is the byproduct of a colonial discourse and the politics of racial
and religious representations. Taghrid Elhanafy argues however that textualities and the
knowledge thereof have always been in motion moving smoothly between the East and the West in
the Early Modern era. Consequently Taghrid Elhanafy suggests a rethinking of the understanding
of source as re source as well as of the influence concept.
