Book contents
- Shakespeare’s Tercentenary
- Shakespeare’s Tercentenary
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 ‘Unser Shakespeare’? The Tercentenary and Germany
- Chapter 2 ‘Our English Shakespeare’? The Tercentenary and Britain
- Chapter 3 Shakespeare among the Allies
- Chapter 4 ‘Not Primarily Patriotic’? The Tercentenary and American National Identity
- Chapter 5 Voices from the Margins
- Conclusion
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 1 - ‘Unser Shakespeare’? The Tercentenary and Germany
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2024
- Shakespeare’s Tercentenary
- Shakespeare’s Tercentenary
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 ‘Unser Shakespeare’? The Tercentenary and Germany
- Chapter 2 ‘Our English Shakespeare’? The Tercentenary and Britain
- Chapter 3 Shakespeare among the Allies
- Chapter 4 ‘Not Primarily Patriotic’? The Tercentenary and American National Identity
- Chapter 5 Voices from the Margins
- Conclusion
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines a range of 1916 Shakespearean appropriations from the German sphere of influence (the German Reich and Austria-Hungary). Many of them argued that Germany had thoroughly ‘naturalised’ Shakespeare and thus had as much, or more, right to ‘own’ him as Britain. They also used Shakespeare to criticise Britain's alleged iniquities. However, German responses to the Shakespeare Tercentenary did not present an entirely unified, patriotic front. Some of them, like the April 1916 issue of the satirical magazine Simplicissimus, exposed significant blind spots in the propagandistic uses of Shakespeare. Chief among them was the uncomfortable contradiction inherent in the claim that Shakespeare was universal and above the hostilities of the war while, at the same time, constituting a uniquely German property. Moreover, it proved possible to use Shakespeare in radical ways which contradicted the official patriotic line, as evidenced in Karl Kraus’s subversive articles published in his magazine Die Fackel.
Keywords
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- Information
- Shakespeare's TercentenaryStaging Nations and Performing Identities in 1916, pp. 22 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023