Shakespeare and the American Nation

ISBN-13: 9780521835855 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 246 str.

Kim C. Sturgess

Opis

This book documents America's relationship with Shakespeare. It relates how and why Shakespeare became a hero of American popular culture and its first media superstar. Why do so many Americans celebrate Shakespeare, a long-dead English poet and playwright? America had already chosen to reject the British monarchy and Parliament, class structure and traditions, by the nineteenth century. Yet its citizens still consider William Shakespeare a naturalized American hero. In fact, the largest group of visitors to Stratford-upon-Avon and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on Bankside currently comes from America.

Recenzje

'This is a readable and stimulating volume …' Literature and History

Spis treści

Acknowledgements; Prologue; Introduction; Part I. The Paradox: 1. Manifest consumption of Shakespeare; 2. America: a proudly anti-English 'idea'; Part II. The Appropriation: 3. Beginning the appropriation of Shakespeare and the 'First American Edition' of his works; 4. Jacksonian energy - Shakespearean imagery; 5. Context for appropriation in nineteenth-century America; 6. The American heroic and ownership of Shakespeare; 7. Shakespeare as a fulcrum for American literature; 8. The American Scholar and the authorship controversy; 9. Last scenes in the final act of appropriation; Epilogue; Appendix I; Appendix II; Bibliography; Index.