Shakespeare's Tercentenary
Staging Nations and Performing Identities in 1916

Uncovers how global Shakespeare Tercentenary commemorations addressed crises of imperial and national identities during the First World War.

Monika Smialkowska (Author)

9781009280877, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 December 2023

330 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 2.1 cm, 0.66 kg

'No other scholar has Monika Smialkowska's sheer breadth of understanding of the global impact of the Shakespeare Tercentenary and of the extraordinary variety of uses to which Shakespeare was put in 1916, from patriotic to pacifist, from imperialist to anti-colonial, from racist to racially empowering. This is a fascinating and original study of the place of Shakespeare in global collective memory.' Gordon McMullan, Professor of English, King's College London

The worldwide commemorations of the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death were held amid the global upheaval of the First World War. As empires battled for world domination and nations sought self-determination, diverse communities vied to claim Shakespeare as their own, to underpin their sense of collective identity and cohesion. Unearthing previously unknown Tercentenary events in Europe, the British Empire, and the USA, Monika Smialkowska demonstrates that the 1916 Shakespeare commemorators did not speak with one unified voice. Tributes by marginalised social, ethnic, and racial groups often challenged the homogenising narratives of the official celebrations. Rather than the traditionally patriotic Bard, used to support totalising versions of national or imperial identity, this study reveals Shakespeare as a site of debate and contestation, in which diverse voices – local and global, nationalist and universalist, militant and pacifist – combined and clashed in a fascinating, open-ended dialogue.

Introduction
1. 'Unser Shakespeare'? the tercentenary and Germany
2. 'Our English Shakespeare'? the tercentenary and Britain
3. Shakespeare among the Allies
4. 'Not primarily patriotic'? the tercentenary and American national identity
5. Voices from the margins: the tercentenary and American racial and ethnic minorities
Conclusion: lest we forget.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]