Appropriating Shakespeare: A Cultural History of Pyramus and Thisbe argues that the vibrant, transformative history of Shakespeare’s play-within-a-play from A Midsummer Night’s Dream across four centuries allows us to see the way in which Shakespeare is used to both create and critique emergent cultural trends. Because of its careful distinction between “good” and “bad” art, Pyramus and Thisbe’s playful meditation on the foolishness of over-reaching theatrical ambition is repeatedly appropriated by artists seeking to parody contemporary aesthetics, resulting in an ongoing assessment of Shakespeare’s value to the time. Beginning with the play’s own creation as an appropriation of Ovid, designed to keep the rowdy clown in check, Appropriating Shakespeare is a wide-ranging study that charts Pyramus and Thisbe’s own metamorphosis through opera, novel, television, and, of course, theatre. This unique history illustrates Pyramus and Thisbe’s ability to attract like-minded, experimental, genre-bending artists who use the text as a means of exploring the value of their own individual craft. Ultimately, what this history reveals is that, in excerpt, Pyramus and Thisbe affirms the place of artist as both consumer and producer of Shakespeare.

During the last two decades, new critical schools of Shakespeare scholarship have emerged, each with its own ideology, each convinced that all other approaches are deficient. This controversial book argues that in attempting to appropriate Shakespeare for their own purposes, these schools omit and misrepresent Shakespeare's text--and thus distort it. Brian Vickers describes the iconoclastic attitudes emerging in French criticism of the 1960s that continue to influence literary theory: that language cannot reliably represent reality; that literature cannot represent life; that since no definitive reading is possible, all interpretation is misinterpretation. Vickers shows that these positions have been refuted, and he brings together work in philosophy, linguistics, and literary theory to rehabilitate language and literature. He then surveys the main conflicting schools in Shakespearean and other current literary criticism--deconstructionism, feminism, new historicism, cultural materialism, and psychoanalytic, Marxist, and Christian interpretations--describing the theoretical basis of each school, both in its own words and in those of its critics. Evaluating the resulting interpretations of Shakespeare, he shows that each is biased and fragmentary in its own way. The epilogue considers two related issues: the attempt of current literary theory to present itself as a coherent system while at the same time wishing to evade accountability; and the way in which different schools "demonize" their rivals, thus adding an intolerant tone to much recent criticism.

Bringing together the discrete fields of appropriation and performance studies, this collection explores pivotal intersections between the two approaches to consider the ethical implications of decisions made when artists and scholars appropriate Shakespeare. The essays in this book, written by established and emerging scholars in subfields such as premodern critical race studies, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, performance studies, adaptation/appropriation studies and fan studies, demonstrate how remaking the plays across time, cultures or media changes the nature both of what Shakespeare promises and the expectations of those promised Shakespeare. Using examples such as rap music, popular television, theatre history and twentieth-century poetry, this collection argues that understanding Shakespeare at different intersections between performance and appropriation requires continuously negotiating what is signified through Shakespeare to the communities that use and consume him.

The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Global Appropriation brings together a variety of different voices to examine the ways that Shakespeare has been adapted and appropriated onto stage, screen, page, and a variety of digital formats. The thirty-nine chapters address topics such as trans- and intermedia performances; Shakespearean utopias and dystopias; the ethics of appropriation; and Shakespeare and global justice as guidance on how to approach the teaching of these topics. This collection brings into dialogue three very contemporary and relevant areas: the work of women and minority scholars; scholarship from developing countries; and innovative media renderings of Shakespeare. Each essay is clearly and accessibly written, but also draws on cutting edge research and theory. It includes two alternative table of contents, offering different pathways through the book – one regional, the other by medium – which open the book up to both teaching and research. Offering an overview and history of Shakespearean appropriations, as well as discussing contemporary issues and debates in the field, this book is the ultimate guide to this vibrant topic. It will be of use to anyone researching or studying Shakespeare, adaptation, and global appropriation.

This book argues that Shakespeare is not the exclusive possession of any one social group or cultural formation, but has provided an enabling and empowering resource which has allowed 'other' radical voices to be heard.

Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Each volume is devoted to a theme, or play, or group of plays; each also contains a section of reviews of criticism and performance. For the first time, numbers 1-50 are being reissued in paperback.