Reputation of William Shakespeare

TheChandos portrait,commonly assumed to depict William Shakespeare but authenticity unknown, "the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul" (John Dryden,1668), "our myriad-minded Shakespeare" (S. T. Coleridge,1817).

In his own time,William Shakespeare(1564–1616) was rated as merely one among many talented playwrights and poets, but since the late 17th century has been considered the supreme playwright and poet of the English language.

No other playwright's work has been performed even remotely as often on the world stage as Shakespeare's. The plays have often been drastically adapted in performance. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the era of the great acting stars, to be a star on the British stage was synonymous with being a great Shakespearean actor. Then the emphasis was placed on thesoliloquiesas declamatory turns at the expense of pace and action, and Shakespeare's plays seemed in peril of disappearing beneath the added music,scenery,andspecial effectsproduced by thunder, lightning, and wave machines.

Editors andcriticsof the plays, disdaining the showiness andmelodramaof Shakespearean stage representation, began to focus on Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, to be studied on the printed page rather than in the theatre. The rift between Shakespeare on the stage and Shakespeare on the page was at its widest in the early 19th century, at a time when both forms of Shakespeare were hitting peaks of fame and popularity: theatrical Shakespeare was successful spectacle and melodrama for the masses, while book orcloset dramaShakespeare was being elevated by the reverential commentary of theRomanticsinto unique poeticgenius,prophet,andbard.Before the Romantics, Shakespeare was simply the most admired of all dramatic poets, especially for his insight into human nature and his realism, but Romantic critics such asSamuel Taylor Coleridgerefactored him into an object of almost religious adoration,George Bernard Shawcoining the term "bardolatry"to describe it. To the later 19th century, Shakespeare became in addition an emblem of national pride, the crown jewel of English culture, and a" rallying-sign ", asThomas Carlylewrote in 1841, for the whole British empire.

17th century

Jacobean and Caroline

Further information:Early texts of Shakespeare's works

A 1596 sketch of a performance in progress on theplatformorapronstage of the typical circularElizabethanopen-roof playhouseThe Swan.

It is difficult to assess Shakespeare's reputation in his own lifetime and shortly after. England had little modern literature before the 1570s, and detailedcriticalcommentaries on modern authors did not begin to appear until the reign ofCharles I.The facts about his reputation can be surmised from fragmentary evidence. He was included in some contemporary lists of leading poets, but he seems to have lacked the stature of the aristocraticPhilip Sidney,who became a cult figure due to his death in battle at a young age, or ofEdmund Spenser.Shakespeare's poems were reprinted far more frequently than his plays; but Shakespeare's plays were written for performance by his own company, and because no law prevented rival companies from using the plays, Shakespeare's troupe took steps to prevent his plays from being printed. That many of his plays were pirated suggests his popularity in the book market, and the regularpatronageof his company by the court, culminating in 1603 whenJames Iturned it into the "King's Men," suggests his popularity among higher stations of society. Modern plays (as opposed to those in Latin and Greek) were considered ephemeral and even somewhat disreputable entertainments by some contemporaries. Some of Shakespeare's plays, particularly the history plays, were reprinted frequently in cheap quarto (i.e. pamphlet) form; others took decades to reach a 3rd edition.

AfterBen Jonsonpioneered thecanonisationof modern plays by printing his own works in folio (the luxury book format) in 1616, Shakespeare was the next playwright to be honoured by a folio collection, in 1623. That this folio went into another edition within 9 years indicates he was held in unusually high regard for a playwright. The dedicatory poems by Ben Jonson andJohn Miltonin the 2nd folio were the first to suggest Shakespeare was the supreme poet of his age. These expensive reading editions are the first visible sign of a rift between Shakespeare on the stage and Shakespeare for readers, a rift that was to widen over the next two centuries. In his 1630 work 'Timber' or 'Discoveries', Ben Jonson praised the speed and ease with which Shakespeare wrote his plays as well as his contemporary's honesty and gentleness towards others.

Interregnum and Restoration

During theInterregnum(1642–1660), all public stage performances were banned by thePuritanrulers. Though denied the use of the stage, costumes and scenery, actors still managed to ply their trade by performing "drolls"or short pieces of larger plays that usually ended with some type of jig. Shakespeare was among the many playwrights whose works were plundered for these scenes. Among the most common scenes wereBottom's scenes fromA Midsummer Night's Dreamand the gravedigger's scene fromHamlet.When the theatres opened again in 1660 after this uniquely long and sharp break in British theatrical history, two newly licensed London theatre companies, the Duke's and the King's Company, started business with a scramble for performance rights to old plays. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and theBeaumont and Fletcher teamwere among the most valuable properties and remained popular after Restoration playwriting had gained momentum.

TheRestorationplayhouses had elaborate scenery. They retained a shortened version of the apron stage for actor/audience contact, although it is not visible in this picture (the artist is standing on it).

In the elaborateRestorationLondon playhouses, designed byChristopher Wren,Shakespeare's plays were staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, andfireworks.The texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage. A notorious example is Irish poetNahum Tate's happy-endingKing Lear(1681) (which held the stage until 1838), whileThe Tempestwas turned into an opera replete with special effects byWilliam Davenant.In fact, as the director of the Duke's Company, Davenant was legally obliged to reform and modernise Shakespeare's plays before performing them, an ad hoc ruling by theLord Chamberlainin the battle for performance rights which "sheds an interesting light on the many 20th-century denunciations of Davenant for his adaptations".The modern view of the Restoration stage as the epitome of Shakespeare abuse and bad taste has been shown by Hume to be exaggerated, and both scenery and adaptation became more reckless in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The incomplete Restoration stage records suggest Shakespeare, although always a major repertory author, was bested in the 1660–1700 period by the phenomenal popularity ofBeaumont and Fletcher."Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage", reported fellow playwrightJohn Drydenin 1668, "two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's". In the early 18th century, however, Shakespeare took over the lead on the London stage from Beaumont and Fletcher, never to relinquish it again.

By contrast to the stage history, inliterary criticismthere was no lag time, no temporary preference for other dramatists: Shakespeare had a unique position at least from theRestorationin 1660 and onwards. While Shakespeare did not follow the unbending Frenchneo-classical "rules"for the drama and the threeclassical unitiesof time, place, and action, those strict rules had never caught on in England, and their sole zealous proponent,Thomas Rymer,was hardly ever mentioned by influential writers except as an example of narrowdogmatism.Dryden, for example, argued in his influentialEssay of Dramatick Poesie(1668) – the same essay in which he noted that Shakespeare's plays were performed only half as often as those of Beaumont and Fletcher – for Shakespeare's artistic superiority. Though Shakespeare does not follow the dramatic conventions, Dryden wrote, Ben Jonson does, and as a result Jonson lands in a distant second place to "the incomparable Shakespeare", the follower of nature, the untaughtgenius,the great realist of human character.

18th century

Britain

In the 18th century, Shakespeare dominated the London stage, while Shakespeare productions turned increasingly into the creation of star turns for star actors. After theLicensing Act of 1737,a quarter of plays performed were by Shakespeare,and on at least two occasions rival London playhouses staged the very same Shakespeare play at the same time (Romeo and Julietin 1755 andKing Learthe next year) and still commanded audiences. This occasion was a striking example of the growing prominence of Shakespeare stars in the theatrical culture, the big attraction being the competition and rivalry between the male leads at Covent Garden and Drury Lane,Spranger BarryandDavid Garrick.There appear to have been no issues with Barry and Garrick, in their late thirties, playing adolescent Romeo one season and geriatric King Lear the next. In September 1769 Garrick staged a majorShakespeare Jubileein Stratford-upon-Avon, which was a major influence on the rise ofbardolatry.It was at the Shakespeare Jubilee that Garrick thanked theShakespeare Ladies Clubfor saving Shakespeare from obscurity: "It was You Ladies that restor'd Shakespeare to the Stage you form'd yourselves into a Society to protect his Fame, and Erected a Monument to his and your own honour in Westminster Abbey."

David Garrick as Benedick inMuch Ado About Nothing,1770.

As performance playscripts diverged increasingly from their originals, the publication of texts intended for reading developed rapidly in the opposite direction, with the invention oftextual criticismand an emphasis on fidelity to Shakespeare's original words. The texts that are being read and performed today were largely settled in the 18th century.Nahum TateandNathaniel Leehad already prepared editions and performed scene divisions in the late 17th century, andNicholas Rowe's edition of 1709 is considered the first truly scholarly text for the plays. It was followed by many good 18th century editions, crowned byEdmund Malone's landmarkVariorum Edition,which was published posthumously in 1821 and remains the basis of modern editions. These collected editions were meant for reading, not staging; Rowe's 1709 edition was, compared to the old folios, a light pocketbook. Shakespeare criticism also increasingly spoke to readers, rather than to theatre audiences.

The only aspects of Shakespeare's plays that were consistently disliked and singled out for criticism in the 18th century were thepuns( "clenches" ) and the "low" (sexual) allusions. While a few editors, notablyAlexander Pope,attempted to gloss over or remove the puns and thedouble entendres,this was quickly reversed, and by mid-century the puns and sexual humour were (with only a few exceptions, notablyThomas Bowdler) restored permanently.

Dryden's sentiments about Shakespeare's imagination and capacity for painting "nature" were echoed in the 18th century by, for example,Joseph Addison( "Among the English, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others" ), Alexander Pope ( "every single character in Shakespeare is as much an Individual as those in Life itself" ), andSamuel Johnson(who scornfully dismissedVoltaire's and Rhymer's neoclassical Shakespeare criticism as "the petty cavils of petty minds" ). The long-lived belief that theRomanticswere the first generation to truly appreciate Shakespeare and to prefer him to Ben Jonson is contradicted by praise from writers throughout the 18th century. Ideas about Shakespeare that many people think of as typicallypost-Romanticwere frequently expressed in the 18th and even in the 17th century: he was described as a genius who needed no learning, as deeply original, and as creating uniquely "real" and individual characters (seeTimeline of Shakespeare criticism). To compare Shakespeare and his well-educated contemporary Ben Jonson was a popular exercise at this time, a comparison that was invariably complimentary to Shakespeare. It functioned to highlight the special qualities of both writers, and it especially powered the assertion that natural genius trumps rules, that "there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature" (Samuel Johnson).

Opinion of Shakespeare was briefly shaped in the 1790s by the "discovery" of theShakespeare PapersbyWilliam Henry Ireland.Ireland claimed to have found in atrunka goldmine of lost documents of Shakespeare's including two plays,Vortigern and RowenaandHenry II.These documents appeared to demonstrate a number of unknown facts about Shakespeare that shaped opinion of his works, including a Profession of Faith demonstrating Shakespeare was aProtestantand that he had an illegitimate child. Although there were many believers in the provenance of the Papers, they soon came under fierce attack from scholars who pointed out their numerous inaccuracies.Vortigernhad only one performance at theDrury Lane Theatrebefore Ireland admitted he hadforgedthe documents and written the plays himself.

In Germany

English actors started visiting theHoly Roman Empirein the late 16th century to work as "fiddlers, singers and jugglers", and through them the work of Shakespeare had first become known in theReich.In 1601, in the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland), which had a large English merchant colony living within its walls, a company of English actors arrived to put on plays by Shakespeare.By 1610, the actors were performing Shakespeare in German as his plays had become popular in Danzig.Some of Shakespeare's work was performed in continental Europe during the 17th century, but it was not until the mid-18th century that it became widely known. In GermanyLessingcompared Shakespeare to German folk literature. In France, theAristotelian ruleswere rigidly obeyed, and in Germany, a land where French cultural influence was very strong (German elites preferred to speak French rather than German in the 18th century), the Francophile German theatre critics had long denounced Shakespeare's work as a "jumble" that violated all the Aristotelian rules.

As a part of an effort to get the German public to take Shakespeare more seriously,Johann Wolfgang von Goetheorganised a Shakespeare jubilee in Frankfurt in 1771, stating in a speech on 14 October 1771 that the dramatist had shown that theAristotelian unitieswere "as oppressive as a prison" and were "burdensome fetters on our imagination". Goethe praised Shakespeare for liberating his mind from the rigid Aristotelian rules, saying: "I jumped into the free air, and suddenly felt I had hands and feet...Shakespeare, my friend, if you were with us today, I could only live with you".Herderlikewise proclaimed that reading Shakespeare's work opens "leaves from the book of events, of providence, of the world, blowing in thesands of time".

This claim that Shakespeare's work breaks through all creative boundaries to reveal a chaotic, teeming, contradictory world became characteristic of Romantic criticism, later expressed byVictor Hugoin the preface to his playCromwell,in which he lauded Shakespeare as an artist of thegrotesque,a genre in which the tragic, absurd, trivial and serious were inseparably intertwined. In 1995, the American journalistStephen Kinzerwriting inThe New York Timesobserved: "Shakespeare is an all-but-guaranteed success in Germany, where his work has enjoyed immense popularity for more than 200 years. By some estimates, Shakespeare's plays are performed more frequently in Germany than anywhere else in the world, not excluding his native England. The market for his work, both in English and in German translation, seems inexhaustible."The German critic Ernst Osterkamp wrote: "Shakespeare's importance to German literature cannot be compared with that of any other writer of the post-antiquity period. Neither Dante or Cervantes, neither Moliere or Ibsen have even approached his influence here. With the passage of time, Shakespeare has virtually become one of Germany's national authors."

In Russia

Shakespeare, as far as can be established, never went any further from Stratford-upon-Avon than London, but he made a reference to the visit of Russian diplomats from the court of TsarIvan the Terribleto the court of Elizabeth I inLove's Labour's Lostin which the French aristocrats dress up as Russians and make fools of themselves.Shakespeare was first translated into Russian byAlexander Sumarokov,who called Shakespeare an "inspired barbarian", who wrote of the Bard of Avon that in his plays "there is much that is bad and exceedingly good".In 1786, Shakespeare's reputation in Russia was greatly enhanced when the EmpressCatherine the Greattranslated a French version ofThe Merry Wives of Windsorinto Russian (Catherine did not know English) and had it staged in St. Petersburg.Shortly afterwards, Catherine translatedTimon of Athensfrom French into Russian.The patronage of Catherine made Shakespeare an eminently respectable author in Russia, but his plays were rarely performed until the 19th century, and instead he was widely read.

In France

Shakespeare and his works began to circulate in France from the beginning of the 18th century. Until this moment, the most admired English poets wereAlexander Pope,John Milton,James ThomsonandThomas Grayand their texts had already been translated into French.

In the first half of the century, French intellectuals who had visited or sojourned in England for a period of time and, therefore, had had the opportunity to see theatrical representations of English plays, began to express their opinions and judgments on Shakespeare and his theatre.

Voltairewas a prominent figure in this debate. InEssai sur la poésie épique(1728), he declared himself to be an admirer of the English theatre, especially of its tragedies, which he considered to be superior to all the other genres brought to the English stage.Voltaire's appreciation for the English theatre was so sincere that he tried to import some of its characteristics into France. The adoption of such features was not immediate or easy. InDiscours sur la tragédie(1731), Voltaire had analysed all the rules that had to be categorically respected in French theatres, all the events that could be represented and those that were absolutely forbidden. As a result, «la delicatesse», la «bienséance» e la «coutume»dominated the French plays and they constituted an obstacle to the introduction of any innovation. Such mutations were scarcely appreciated by the playwrights, actors and audiences.Voltaire showed his will to partly abandon such conventions, mainly because they were an impediment for the realisation of some scenes he was working on, firstly the death of Julius Caesar. The main impediment for this scene was the rule that in French tragedies, characters could commit suicide, but not murder. Voltaire fought to change this convention, supporting his thesis with examples from Ancient Greek theatre and the contemporary English theatre, where assassinations were regularly represented on stage. However, Voltaire also stated that English tragedies could turn into « un lieu de carnage».What he wanted to achieve was a compromise between tradition and innovation.

Eventually, innovations infiltrated into French theatre and when Voltaire presentedLa Mort de Cèsarto his audience in 1743, he was able to represent Caesar's death as he had originally imagined it.

Voltaire also lamented that no one among his fellow countrymen had tried to translate Shakespeare.He personally translated the speech of Brutus inJulius Caesar,becoming the first Frenchman to translate a passage from a Shakespearean play. His translation was included inDiscours sur la tragedie,published in 1730.Some years later, he translated Hamlet's monologue, which was published inLes Lettres philosophiques(1734).Shakespeare's popularity steadily increased during the century and others tested themselves with translating the Bard. The appearance of numerous translations points out a change in the taste of French playwrights and audiences.

In 1746Pierre-Antoine La Placepublished eight volumes containing summaries of every Shakespearean play and partial translations of some of them. Between 1776 and 1782Pierre Letournertranslated the complete corpus of Shakespeare's plays. His work also included comments on Shakespeare, particularly on his ability to depict human emotions and make characters talk in a language close to that used in everyday life. Letourner's translations do not lack errors, but his work was fundamental in spreading the knowledge of Shakespeare and the English theatre in France.

In Italy

Shakespeare remained almost unknown in Italy until the beginning of the 18th century. The most translated and admired English poets wereAlexander Pope,John Milton,Thomas GrayandJames Thomson. The knowledge of Shakespeare spread in the peninsula in two different ways. On one hand, Italian intellectuals who sojourned for a period of time in England had the possibility to witness theatrical representations and to write about their experiences; their texts, then, travelled back to Italy. On the other hand, many English people travelled to Italy in the 18th century, since it was one of the many destinations on theGrand Tour.The occasions for interactions between English and Italian people were numerous. Moreover, English people who migrated or were banished from England, often chose Italy as their new home. However, many French translations and adaptations of Shakespearean plays began to circulate in Europe in this period, and the majority of Italian writers started to read Shakespeare in French.Few people knew English and dictionaries were not widely available. For Italians, their first approach towards English plays was often through French renditions and, even though they presented substantial differences from the originals, they introduced the knowledge of English theatre and its rules into Italy. One of the most famous and most-read French adaptations wasLa mort de CésarbyVoltaire,based onJulius Caesarby Shakespeare.Shakespearean plays began to be staged in Italian theatres in the second half of the century, and they were nearly always adaptations or rewrites.

In 1705,Apostolo ZenowroteAmbleto,which was staged in Venice the following year. Ambleto was not a translation ofHamlet,not even an adaptation. The only similarity withHamletwas its source of inspiration, and it has now been verified that the author did not know Shakespeare. The production was so successful that it was brought to the stage of the Haymarket Theatre in London in 1712. The play was staged again in Italy in 1750, but it had not been influenced by the ShakespeareanHamlet.As a matter of fact, it was identical to the first version of 1706. This is a signal of how there was no real interest for the English theatre and its characteristics in Italy, yet.

The first Italian melodrama which was inspired by a tragedy by Shakespeare dates to 1789:AmletobyGimbattista Zanchi.He, however, worked with the help of a French rendition. It is possible, then, that he did not know the original version of the tragedy. The only melodrama which took inspiration directly from an original work by Shakespeare wasRosalinda(1744) byPaolo Rolli.His source of inspiration wasAs you like itand it was the only theatrical production that took inspiration from a Shakespearean comedy instead of a tragedy.

From the beginning of the century, however, some intellectuals attempted to translate some passages from Shakespeare's plays, even if these were often via French translations.Antonio Contilived in London from 1715 to 1718 and he composed two tragedies during his sojourn:Julius CaesarandMarcus Brutus,both inspired by Shakespeare'sJulius Caesar.In the preface to the tragedies, Conti praised Shakespeare and expressed his surprise at the fact that no Italian writer had attempted a translation of the Bard sooner. He also noted how Shakespeare did not respect the Aristotelian units. Italian playwrights, on the other hand, were still observing these principles and Conti was no exception. Therefore, the action of his tragedies takes place in one location and it only lasts a few hours.

In 1729,Paolo Rollipublished an Italian translation of the first six books ofParadise Lost.In the preface, he praised Shakespeare and compared him toDante.In 1739 he published a translation of one of Hamlet's monologues.

The first complete Italian translation of a Shakespearean tragedy wasGiulio CesarebyDomenico Valentini,printed in 1756. Valentini used the English edition of the tragedy printed in 1733 byLewis Theobaldfor his translation. In his preface, he stated that he did not understand English, therefore, he asked for the help of some knights, whose identity is still unknown. It is probable that they were English knights who were visiting Siena as part of TheGrand Tour.It was common for Italian and English people to meet in social and cultural gatherings. This is probably how Valentini met them and asked them to assist him in the process of translation.

Other intellectuals worked on Shakespeare towards the end of the century.Giuseppe BarettipublishedDiscours sur Shakespeare et M.r de Voltairein 1777;Alessandro VerritranslatedHamletandOthellobetween 1769 and 1777;Francesco Algarotti,who did not appreciate English theatre, changed his mind when he saw a representation ofJulius Caesarin London. He also translated the passages he thought were the most salient in Brutus's speech.Giustina Renier MichieltranslatedOthello,MacbethandCoriolanusbetween 1798 and 1801. It is still uncertain whether she worked alone. Letters exchanged with Cesarotti lead scholars to think that she may have been helped by another Italian writer. It is also possible that she worked alone, using a French rendition to help with the translations. The question is still unsolved.

In Spain

The knowledge of Shakespeare and his works in European countries, including Spain, arrived centuries after his death and not always easily. While it is possible that some Shakespeare plays may have arrived in Spain as soon as the end of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, the earliest documented example of a work of Shakespeare's in Spain isThe Two Noble Kinsmen,circa 1640.But the first editions to reach Spain were in recusant libraries and did not have an impact on playwrights and play-goers in Spain.

There is weak evidence that a First Folio and strong evidence that Second Folio containing historical dramas arrived in the country after 1632, the year in which the latter was published in England. There is also evidence of a third Folio imported in Spain in 1742 but it is now lost. However, these editions alone were not sufficient to spark the interest of Spanish writers and critics. Shakespeare's works began to be read by a larger number of intellectuals in the 18th century; however, Shakespeare did not arrive to Spain in his original language, but he began to be studied thanks to French adaptations and rewritings. Spanish scholars rarely read Shakespeare in English.

The arrival of Shakespeare in the country brought with it the debate on theatre, its rules, its virtues and vices. The classical rules of Spanish, French andItalian theatre,derived from the classical theatre, were often an obstacle for the introduction of innovations coming from different theatrical traditions. English theatre, for instance, did not respect classical rules. This provoked admiration but, at the same time, rejection for Shakespeare and his works: on one hand his imagination was admired but on the other he used too many features that did not find their place in the Spanish tradition. Those critics who expressed their judgment on the Bard in the 18th century judged him from a classical perspective and since he did not comply with the classical rules of theatre, he was not worth of appreciation. As a consequence, his works began to be translated only at the end of the 18th century. The first Spanish translation of Shakespeare dates to 1798, when Leandro Fernandéz de Moratìn translatedHamlet.However, the first tragedy to be translated directly from the original English version, without the mediation of a French text, dates to 1838 and it wasMacbethtranslated by José García de Villalta. Shakespearean plays began to be represented in Spanish theatres only at the beginning of the 19th century but they were often neoclassic adaptations derived from French rewritings. Between 1808 and 1817Othello,Romeo and JulietandMacbethwere brought to the stage. Shakespeare began to be appreciated more with the advent ofRomanticism.

19th century

Shakespeare in performance

The Theatre Royal atDrury Lanein 1813. The platform stage is gone, and note the orchestra cutting off the actors from the audience.

Theatres and theatrical scenery became ever more elaborate in the 19th century, and the acting editions used were progressively cut and restructured to emphasise more and more thesoliloquiesand the stars, at the expense of pace and action.Performances were further slowed by the need for frequent pauses to change the scenery, creating a perceived need for even more cuts to keep performance length within tolerable limits; it became a generally accepted maxim that Shakespeare's plays were too long to be performed without substantial cuts. The platform, or apron, stage, on which actors of the 17th century would come forward for audience contact, was gone, and the actors stayed permanently behind thefourth wallorprosceniumarch, further separated from the audience by the orchestra, see image right.

Through the 19th century, a roll call of legendary actors' names all but drown out the plays in which they appear:Sarah Siddons(1755–1831),John Philip Kemble(1757–1823),Henry Irving(1838–1905), andEllen Terry(1847–1928). To be a star of the legitimate drama came to mean being first and foremost a "great Shakespeare actor", with a famous interpretation of, for men, Hamlet, and for women, Lady Macbeth, and especially with a striking delivery of the great soliloquies. The acme of spectacle, star, and soliloquy Shakespeare performance came with the reign of actor-manager Henry Irving at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in London from 1878 to 1899. At the same time, a revolutionary return to the roots of Shakespeare's original texts, and to the platform stage, absence of scenery, and fluid scene changes of the Elizabethan theatre, was being effected byWilliam Poel'sElizabethan Stage Society.

Shakespeare in criticism

Thomas De Quincey:"O, mighty poet! Thy works are... like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers".

The belief in the unappreciated 18th-century Shakespeare was proposed at the beginning of the 19th century by the Romantics, in support of their view of 18th-century literary criticism as mean, formal, and rule-bound, which was contrasted with their own reverence for the poet as prophet and genius. Such ideas were most fully expressed by German critics such asGoetheand theSchlegelbrothers. Romantic critics such asSamuel Taylor ColeridgeandWilliam Hazlittraised admiration for Shakespeare to worship or even "bardolatry"(a sarcastic coinage from bard + idolatry byGeorge Bernard Shawin 1901, meaning excessive or religious worship of Shakespeare). To compare him to other Renaissance playwrights at all, even for the purpose of finding him superior, began to seem irreverent. Shakespeare was rather to be studied without any involvement of the critical faculty, to be addressed or apostrophised—almost prayed to—by his worshippers, as inThomas De Quincey's classic essay "On the Knocking at the Gate inMacbeth"(1823):" O, mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,—like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties... ".

As the concept of literaryoriginalitygrew in importance, critics were horrified at the idea of adapting Shakespeare's tragedies for the stage by putting happy endings on them, or editing out the puns inRomeo and Juliet.In another way, what happened on the stage was seen as unimportant, as the Romantics, themselves writers ofcloset drama,considered Shakespeare altogether more suitable for reading than staging.Charles Lambsaw any form of stage representation as distracting from the true qualities of the text. This view, argued as a timeless truth, was also a natural consequence of the dominance of melodrama and spectacle on the early 19th-century stage.

Shakespeare became an important emblem of national pride in the 19th century, which was the heyday of theBritish Empireand the acme of British power in the world. ToThomas CarlyleinOn Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History(1841), Shakespeare was one of the great poet-heroes of history, in the sense of being a "rallying-sign" for British cultural patriotism all over the world, including even the lost American colonies: "From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever... English men and women are, they will say to one another, 'Yes, this Shakespeare is ours; we produced him, we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind with him'" ( "The Hero as a Poet" ). As the foremost of the greatcanonicalwriters, the jewel of English culture, and as Carlyle puts it, "merely as a real, marketable, tangibly useful possession", Shakespeare became in the 19th century a means of creating a common heritage for the motherland and all her colonies.Post-colonialliterary critics have had much to say of this use of Shakespeare's plays in what they regard as a move to subordinate and uproot the cultures of the colonies themselves.

Across the North Sea, Shakespeare remained influential in Germany. In 1807,August Wilhelm Schlegeltranslated all of Shakespeare's plays into German, and such was the popularity of Schlegel's translation (which is generally regarded as one of the best translations of Shakespeare into any language), that German nationalists were soon starting to claim that Shakespeare was actually a German playwright who had just written his plays in English.By the middle of the 19th century, Shakespeare had been incorporated into the pantheon of German literature.In 1904, a statue of Shakespeare was erected inWeimar,showing the Bard of Avon staring into the distance, becoming the first statue built to honor Shakespeare on the mainland of Europe.

Romantic icon in Russia

In the Romantic age, Shakespeare became extremely popular in Russia.Vissarion Belinskywrote he had been "enslaved by the drama of Shakespeare".Russia's national poet,Alexander Pushkin,was heavily influenced byHamletand the history plays, and his novelBoris Godunovshowed strong Shakespearean influences.Later on, in the 19th century, the novelistIvan Turgenevoften wrote essays on Shakespeare with the best known being "Hamlet and Don Quixote".Fyodor Dostoevskywas greatly influenced byMacbethwith his novelCrime and Punishmentshowing Shakespearean influence in his treatment of the theme of guilt.From the 1840s onward, Shakespeare was regularly staged in Russia, and the black American actorIra Aldridge,who had been barred from the stage in the United States on the account of his skin color, became the leading Shakespearean actor in Russia in the 1850s, being decorated by the Emperor Alexander II for his work in portraying Shakespearean characters.

20th century

Shakespeare continued to be considered the greatest English writer of all time throughout the 20th century. Most Western educational systems required the textual study of two or more of Shakespeare's plays, and both amateur and professional stagings of Shakespeare were commonplace. It was the proliferation of high-quality, well-annotated texts and the unrivalled reputation of Shakespeare that allowed for stagings of Shakespeare's plays to remain textually faithful, but with an extraordinary variety in setting, stage direction, and costuming. Institutions such as theFolger Shakespeare Libraryin the United States worked to ensure constant, serious study of Shakespearean texts, and theRoyal Shakespeare Companyin the United Kingdom worked to maintain a yearly staging of at least two plays.

Shakespeare performances reflected the tensions of the times, and early in the 20th century,Barry Jacksonof theBirmingham Repertory Theatrebegan the staging of modern-dress productions, thus starting a new trend in Shakespearean production. Performances of the plays could be highly interpretive. Thus, play directors would emphasiseMarxist,feminist,or, perhaps most popularly,Freudianpsychoanalyticalinterpretations of the plays, even as they retained letter-perfect scripts. The number of analytical approaches became more diverse by the latter part of the century, as critics applied theories such asstructuralism,New Historicism,Cultural materialism,African American studies,queer studies,andliterary semioticsto Shakespeare's works.

In the Third Reich

In 1934 the French government dismissed the director of theComédie Françaiseover a controversial production ofCoriolanusthat had been the occasion for right-wing violence, amidst theStavisky affair.In the international protests that followed, came one from Germany, from none other thanJoseph Goebbels.Although productions of Shakespeare's plays in Germany itself were subject to 'streamlining', he continued to be favoured as a great classical dramatist, especially so as almost every new German play since the late 1890s onwards was portrayed by German government propaganda as the work of left-wingers, of Jews or of "degenerates" of one kind or another. Politically acceptable writers had simply been unable to fill the gap, or had only been able to do so through producing propaganda. In 1935, Goebbels was to say "We can build autobahns, revive the economy, create a new army, but we... cannot manufacture new dramatists." WithSchillersuspect for his radicalism,Lessingfor his humanism and evenGoethefor his lack of patriotism, the legacy of the "Aryan" Shakespeare was reinterpreted for new purposes.

Rodney Symington, Professor of Germanic and Russian Studies at theUniversity of Victoria,Canada, deals with this question inThe Nazi Appropriation of Shakespeare: Cultural Politics in the Third Reich(Edwin Mellen Press, 2005). The scholar reports thatHamlet,for instance, was reconceived as a proto-German warrior rather than a man with a conscience. Of this play, one critic wrote: "If the courtier Laertes is drawn to Paris and the humanist Horatio seems more Roman than Danish, it is surely no accident that Hamlet's alma mater should beWittenberg."A leading magazine declared that the crime which deprived Hamlet of his inheritance was a foreshadowing of theTreaty of Versailles,and that the conduct of Gertrude was reminiscent of the "spineless"Weimar politicians.

Weeks after Hitler took power in 1933, an official party publication appeared, entitledShakespeare – a Germanic Writer,a counter to those who wanted to ban all foreign influences. At thePropaganda Ministry,Rainer Schlosser, given charge of German theatre by Goebbels, mused that Shakespeare was more German than English. After the outbreak of the Second World War, the performance of Shakespeare was banned, though this ban was quickly lifted by Hitler in person, a favour extended to no other playwright. Not only did the regime appropriate the Bard, but it also appropriatedElizabethan Englanditself. To the Nazi leaders, Elizabethan England had been a young, vigorous nation, much like the Third Reich itself, quite unlike the decadentBritish Empireof the then present day.

There were some exceptions to the official approval of Shakespeare, as the great patriotic plays, most notablyHenry V,were shelved. The reception ofThe Merchant of Venicewas at best lukewarm (Marlowe'sThe Jew of Maltawas suggested as a possible alternative), because it was notanti-Semiticenough for Nazi taste (the play's conclusion, in which the daughter of the Jewish antagonist converts to Christianity and marries one of the Gentile protagonists, particularly violated Nazi notions of racial purity).Hamletwas by far the most popular play, along withMacbethandRichard III.

In the Soviet Union

Given the popularity of Shakespeare in Russia, there were film versions of Shakespeare that often differed from western interpretations, usually emphasizing a humanist message that implicitly criticized the Soviet regime.Othello(1955) bySergei Yutkevichcelebrated Desdemona's love for Othello as a triumph of love over racial hatred.Hamlet(1964) byGrigori Kozintsevportrayed 16th century Denmark as a dark, gloomy and oppressive place, with recurring images of imprisonment, these marking the film from the focus on the portcullis of Elsinore to the iron corset Ophelia is forced to wear as she goes insane.The tyranny of Claudius was made to resemble the tyranny of Stalin with gigantic portraits and busts of Claudius being prominent in the background of the film, suggesting that Claudius had engaged in a "cult of personality". Given the emphasis on images of imprisonment, Hamlet's decision to avenge his father becomes almost subsidiary to his struggle for freedom, as he challenges the Stalin-like tyranny of Claudius.Hamlet in this film resembles aSoviet dissidentwho—despite his own hesitation, fears and doubts—can no longer stand the moral rot around him. The film was based on a script written by the novelistBoris Pasternak,who had been persecuted under Stalin.The 1971 version ofKing Lear,also directed by Kozintsev, presented the play as a "Tolstoyan panorama of bestiality and courage" as Lear finds his moral redemption amongst the common people.

Acceptance in France

Shakespeare, for a variety of reasons, had never caught on in France, and even when his plays were performed in France in the 19th century, they were drastically altered to fit in with French tastes, with, for example,Romeo and Juliethaving a happy ending.It was not until 1946 thatHamlet,as translated byAndré Gide,was performed in Paris and "ensured Shakespeare's elevation to cult status" in France.The philosopherJean-Paul Sartrewrote that French intellectuals had been "abruptly reintegrated into history" by the German occupation of 1940–44 as the old teleological history version of history with the world getting progressively better (as led by France) no longer held, and as such the "nihilist" and "chaotic" plays of Shakespeare finally found an audience in France.The Economistobserved: "By the late 1950s, Shakespeare had entered the French soul. No one who has seen theComédie-Françaiseperform his plays at the Salle Richelieu in Paris is likely to forget the special buzz in the audience, for the bard is the darling of France. "

In China

In the years of tentative political andeconomic liberalizationafter the death of Mao in 1976, Shakespeare became popular in China.The very act of putting on a play by Shakespeare, formerly condemned as a "bourgeois Western imperialist author" whom no Chinese could respect, was in and of itself an act of quiet dissent.Of all Shakespeare's plays, the most popular in China in the late 1970s and 1980s wasMacbeth.It has been posited that Chinese audiences saw in this play, first performed in England in 1606 and set in 11th century Scotland, a parallel with theGreat Proletarian Cultural Revolutionof the late 1960s.The violence and bloody chaos ofMacbethreminded Chinese audiences of the violence and bloody chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and furthermore, the story of a national hero becoming a tyrant, complete with a power-hungry wife, was seen as a parallel withMao Zedongand his wife,Jiang Qing.Reviewing a production ofMacbethin Beijing in 1980, one Chinese critic, Xu Xiaozhong, praisedMacbethas the story of "how the greed for power finally ruined a great man".Another critic, Zhao Xun, wrote: "Macbethis the fifth Shakespearean play produced on the Chinese stage after the smashing of theGang of Four.This play of conspiracy has always been performed at critical moments in the history of our nation ".

Likewise, a 1982 production ofKing Learwas hailed by the critics as the story of "moral decline", of a story "when human beings' souls were so polluted that they even mistreated their aged parents", an allusion to the days of the Cultural Revolution when the young people serving in the Red Guard had berated, denounced, attacked and sometimes even killed their parents for failing to live up to "Mao Zedong thought".The play's director, the Shakespearean scholar Fang Ping, who had suffered during the Cultural Revolution for studying this "bourgeois Western imperialist", stated in an interview at the time thatKing Learwas relevant in China because King Lear, the "highest ruler of a monarchy", created a world full of cruelty and chaos where those who loved him were punished and those who did not were rewarded, a barely veiled reference to the often capricious behavior of Mao, who punished his loyal followers for no apparent reason.Cordelia's devotion and love for her father—despite his madness, cruelty and rejection of her—is seen in China as affirming traditional Confucian values, where love of the family counts above all, and for this reason,King Learis seen in China as being a very "Chinese" play that affirms the traditional values offilial piety.

A 1981 production ofThe Merchant of Venicewas a hit with Chinese audiences, as the play was seen to promote the theme of justice and fairness in life, with the character of Portia being especially popular, as she is seen as standing for, as one critic wrote, "the humanist spirit of the Renaissance" with its striving for "individuality, human rights and freedom".The theme of a religious conflict between a Jewish merchant vs. a Christian merchant inThe Merchant of Veniceis generally ignored in Chinese productions ofThe Merchant of Venice,as most Chinese find do not find the theme of Jewish-Christian conflict relevant.Unlike in Western productions, the character of Shylock is presented very much as an unnuanced villain, capable only of envy, spite, greed and cruelty, a man whose actions are only motivated by his spiritual impoverishment.By contrast, in the West, Shylock is usually presented as a nuanced villain, a man who has never held power over a Christian before, and lets that power go to his head.Another popular play, especially with dissidents under the Communist government, isHamlet.Hamlet,with its theme of a man trapped under a tyrannical regime is very popular with Chinese dissidents, with one dissidentWu Ningkun,writing about his time in internal exile between 1958 and 1961 at a collective farm in a remote part of northern Manchuria, that he understood all too well the line "Denmark is a prison!"

Film

Main article:List of William Shakespeare screen adaptations

The divergence between text and performance in Shakespeare continued into the new medium of film. For instance, bothHamletandRomeo and Juliethave been filmed in modern settings, sometimes with contemporary "updated" dialogue. Additionally, there have been efforts (notably by theBBC) to ensure the existence of a filmed or videotaped version of every Shakespeare play. The reasoning for this was educational, as many government initiatives recognised the need to get performative Shakespeare into the same classrooms as the plays being read.

Poetry

Bunting's edits to the opening lines of Shakespeare'sSonnet 86.

Many English-languageModernist poetsdrew on Shakespeare's works, interpreting him in new ways.Ezra Pound,for instance, considered the Sonnets as a kind of apprentice work, with Shakespeare learning the art of poetry through writing them. He also declared the history plays to be the true Englishepic.InTradition and the Individual Talent,T. S. Eliotwrote that "Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history fromPlutarchthan most men could from the wholeBritish Museum."Basil Buntingrewrote the sonnets as modernist poems by simply erasing all the words he considered unnecessary.Louis Zukofskyhad read all of Shakespeare's works by the time he was eleven, and hisBottom: On Shakespeare(1947) is a book-lengthprose poemexploring the role of the eye in the plays. In its original printing, a second volume consisting of a setting ofThe Tempestby the poet's wife,Celia Zukofsky,was also included.

21st century

Shakespeare's reputation continues to have an influence on the film industry, with new versions of his works, such asThe Tragedy of Macbeth(2021), directed byJoel Coen,being put into production. Regular performances of Shakespeare's plays continue to be held globally, with Shakespeare's works often appreciated by the younger generation of students, the liberal, progressive Gen Z. Critics continue to regard Shakespeare as the greatest writer and poet of the English Language. Shakespeare's plays (especially A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar) are taught in nearly every English speaking school globally and are repeatedly translated into different languages.

Critical quotations

Main article:Timeline of Shakespeare criticism

The growth of Shakespeare's reputation is illustrated by a timeline of Shakespeare criticism, from John Dryden's "when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too" (1668) to Thomas Carlyle's estimation of Shakespeare as the "strongest of rallying-signs" (1841) for an English identity.

References

• Hawkes, Terence. (1992)Meaning by Shakespeare.London: Routledge.ISBN0-415-07450-9.
• Hume, Robert D. (1976).The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century.Oxford: Clarendon Press.ISBN0-19-812063-X.
• Lynch, Jack (2007).Becoming Shakespeare: The Strange Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard.New York: Walker & Co.
• Marder, Louis. (1963).His Exits and His Entrances: The Story of Shakespeare's Reputation.Philadelphia: JB Lippincott.
• Pierce, Patricia.The Great Shakespeare Fraud: The Strange, True Story of William-Henry Ireland.Sutton Publishing, 2005.
• Sorelius, Gunnar. (1965)."The Giant Race Before the Flood": Pre-Restoration Drama on the Stage and in the Criticism of the Restoration.Uppsala: Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia.
• Speaight, Robert. (1954)William Poel and the Elizabethan revival.Published for The Society for Theatre Research. London: Heinemann.

External links

Audiobook

• Tolstoy on Shakespeare (1906)

E-texts (chronological)

• Ben Jonson on Shakespeare (1630)
• John Dryden,Essay of Dramatic Poesy,(1668)
• Thomas Rhymer's notorious attack onOthello,1692 (at Angelfire website),which in the end did Shakespeare's reputation more good than harm, by firing up John Dryden,John Dennisand other influential critics into writing eloquent replies.
• Alexander Pope, Preface to hisWorks of Shakespear(1725)
• Thomas De Quincey, "On the Knocking at the Gate inMacbeth"(1823)
• Thomas Carlyle,On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History(1841)

Other resources

• PeoplePlay UK Shakespeare performance timeline
• Shakespeare biography and online resources at NoSweatShakespeare
• The Shakespeare Resource CenterA directory of Web resources for online Shakespearean study. Includes a Shakespeare biography, works timeline, play synopses, and language resources.