Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity

Shakespeare’s works occupy a prismatic and complex position in world culture: they straddle both the high and the low, the national and the foreign, literature and theatre. The Second World War presents a fascinating case study of this phenomenon: most, if not all, of its combatants have laid claim to Shakespeare and have called upon his work to convey their society’s self-image.

In wartime, such claims frequently brought to the fore a crisis of cultural identity and of competing ownership of this ‘universal’ author. Despite this, the role of Shakespeare during the Second World War has not yet been examined or documented in any depth. Shakespeare and the Second World War provides the first sustained international, collaborative incursion into this terrain. The essays demonstrate how the wide variety of ways in which Shakespeare has been recycled, reviewed, and reinterpreted from 1939–1945 are both illuminated by and continue to illuminate the War today.

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Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity

Shakespeare’s works occupy a prismatic and complex position in world culture: they straddle both the high and the low, the national and the foreign, literature and theatre. The Second World War presents a fascinating case study of this phenomenon: most, if not all, of its combatants have laid claim to Shakespeare and have called upon his work to convey their society’s self-image.

In wartime, such claims frequently brought to the fore a crisis of cultural identity and of competing ownership of this ‘universal’ author. Despite this, the role of Shakespeare during the Second World War has not yet been examined or documented in any depth. Shakespeare and the Second World War provides the first sustained international, collaborative incursion into this terrain. The essays demonstrate how the wide variety of ways in which Shakespeare has been recycled, reviewed, and reinterpreted from 1939–1945 are both illuminated by and continue to illuminate the War today.

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Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity

Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity

Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity
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Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity

Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity

Overview

Shakespeare’s works occupy a prismatic and complex position in world culture: they straddle both the high and the low, the national and the foreign, literature and theatre. The Second World War presents a fascinating case study of this phenomenon: most, if not all, of its combatants have laid claim to Shakespeare and have called upon his work to convey their society’s self-image.

In wartime, such claims frequently brought to the fore a crisis of cultural identity and of competing ownership of this ‘universal’ author. Despite this, the role of Shakespeare during the Second World War has not yet been examined or documented in any depth. Shakespeare and the Second World War provides the first sustained international, collaborative incursion into this terrain. The essays demonstrate how the wide variety of ways in which Shakespeare has been recycled, reviewed, and reinterpreted from 1939–1945 are both illuminated by and continue to illuminate the War today.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781442698383
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Publication date: 09/18/2012
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 296
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Irena R. Makaryk is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa.

Marissa McHugh is an doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Tables
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Shakespeare and the Second World War.
IRENA R. MAKARYK (University of Ottawa)

German Shakespeare, the Third Reich, and the War.
WERNER HABICHT (University of Würzburg)

Shakespearean Negotiations in the Perpetrator Society: German Productions of The Merchant of Venice during the Second World War.
ZENO ACKERMANN (Freie Universität Berlin)

Shylock, Palestine, and the Second World War.
MARK BAYER (University of Texas at San Antonio)

“Caesar’s word against the world”: Mussolini’s Caesarism and Discourses of Empire.
NANCY ISENBERG (the Università degli Studi Roma Tre)

Shakespeare and Censorship during the Second World War: Othello in Occupied Greece
TINA KRONTIRIS (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

“In This Hour of History: Amidst These Tragic Events”: Polish Shakespeare during the Second World War
KRYSTYNA KUJAWINSKA COURTNEY (University of Lodz)

Pasternak's Shakespeare in Wartime Russia.
ALEKSEI SEMENENKO (Stockholm University)

Shakespeare as an Icon of the Enemy Culture: Shakespeare in Wartime Japan, 1937-1945
RYUTA MINAMI (Shirayuri College)

“Warlike Noises”:  Jingoistic Hamlet during the Sino-Japanese Wars.
ALEX HUANG (Penn State University)

Shakespeare, Stratford, and the Second World War.
SIMON BARKER (University of Lincoln)

Rosalinds, Violas, and Other Sentimental Friendships: The Osiris Players and Shakespeare, 1939-45.
PETER BILLINGHAM (University of Winchester)

Maurice Evans’s “G.I. Hamlet”: Analogy, Authority and Adaptation.
ANNE RUSSELL (Wilfrid Laurier University)

The War at “Home”: Representations of Canada and of World War II in Star Crossed.
MARISSA MCHUGH (University of Ottawa)

Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice in Auschwitz.
TIBOR EGERVARI (University of Ottawa)

Appropriating Shakespeare in Defeat:  Hamlet and the Contemporary Polish Vision of War.
KATARZYNA KWAPISZ-WILLIAMS (University of Lodz)

Contributors
Index

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