Shakespeare and Modern Culture
INTRODUCTION
The premise of this book is simple and direct: Shakespeare makes modern culture and modern culture makes Shakespeare. I could perhaps put the second “Shakespeare” in quotation marks, so as to indicate that what I have in mind is our idea of Shakespeare and of what is Shakespearean. But in fact it will be my claim that Shakespeare and “Shakespeare” are perceptually and conceptually the same from the viewpoint of any modern observer.
Characters like Romeo, Hamlet, or Lady Macbeth have become cultural types, instantly recognizable when their names are invoked. As will become clear, the modern versions of these figures often differ significantly from their
Shakespearean “originals”: a “Romeo” is a persistent romancer and philanderer rather than a lover faithful unto death, a “Hamlet” is an indecisive overthinker, and a “Lady Macbeth,” in the public press, is an ambitious female politician who will stop at nothing to gain her own ends. But the very changes marked by these appropriations tell a revealing story about modern culture and modern life.
The i ...
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