This course will largely focus on some Shakespeare’s “afterlives” of the past twenty years. Although his reputation rests on his work, Shakespeare was invented in the 18th century as something beyond a “mere” playwright. We’ll take a brief look at the start of this phenomenon with David Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee in 1769, then study some recent recyclings of ‘the Shakespearean’ in theater, film, fiction, dance, opera, television, actor’s autobiographies, and theatrical institutions and festivals. Our key Shakespeare texts will be Othello, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.
