Shakespeare and Appropriation

"Shakespeare and Appropriation" is a fascinating collection of original and previously unpublished essays that shows how writers' efforts to intimate, compete with, contradict, and reproduce Shakespeare keep him in the cultural conversation. The contributors analyze the methods and motives of Shakespearean appropriation by looking at a wide range of works and people.

Contributors include: James Andreas, Caroline Cakebread, Richard Finkelstein, Terence Hawkes, Ivo Kamps, Matt Kozusko, Laurie Osborne, Robert Sawyer, Jyotsna Singh, Lisa S. Starks, Georgianna Ziegler, Gary L. Taylor.

The vitality of our culture is still often measured by the status Shakespeare has within it. Contemporary readers and writers continue to exploit Shakespeare's cultural afterlife in a vivid and creative way. This fascinating collection of original essays shows how writers' efforts to imitate, contradict, compete with, and reproduce Shakespeare keep him in the cultural conversation. The essays: * analyze the methods and motives of Shakespearean appropriation * investigate theoretically the return of the repressed author in discussions of Shakespeare's cultural function * put into dialogue theoretical and literary responses to Shakespeare's cultural authority * analyze works ranging from nineteenth century to the present, and genres ranging from poetry and the novel to Disney movies.

List of illustrations List of contributors General editor's preface Acknowledgements Introduction, Christy Desmet, Part 1: Appropriation in Theory, 1. Alas, Poor Shakespeare! I Knew Him Well Ivo Kamps 2. Entry on Q Terence Hawkes 3. Romancing the Bard Laurie E. Osbourne 4. Moor or Less?: The Surveillance of Othello , Calcutta 1848 Sudipto Chatterjee and Jyotsana G. Singh Part 2: Appropriation in Practice 5. Remembering King Lear in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres Caroline Cakebread 6. Signifyin' on The Tempest in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day James R. Andreas, Sr. 7. Accommodating the Virago: Nineteenth-Century Representations of Lady Macbeth Georgianna Ziegler 8. The Shakespeareanization of Robert Browning Robert Sawyer 9. The Displaced Body of Desire: Sexuality in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet Lisa S. Starks 10. Disney Cites Shakespeare: The Limits of Appropriation Richard Finkelstein 11. Afterword: The Incredible Shrinking Bard Gary Taylor Further Reading, Matt Kozusko Bibliography Index

Christy Desmet is Associate professor of English at the University of Georgia, and the author of Reading Shakespeare's Characters: Rhetroric, Ethics and Identity (University of Massachusetts Press, 1992). Robert Sawyer is Visiting Associate Professor of English at the University of Georgia.