Adrian Poole's important new study examines the Victorians' obsession with Shakespeare, his impact on the era's consciousness, and the expression of this in their drama, novels and poetry. Others have addressed aspects of the Victorian Shakespeare but Adrian Poole is the first to present such a broad view of what Shakespeare meant to the period as a whole, across the spectrum of artistic and cultural production.
Shakespeare's pervasiveness throughout the period is readily tangible; his words were always on their lips, while his characters filled their imaginations, inciting them to allude, the parody, to rework his stories and constantly to invoke (or sometimes challenge) his authority. Shakespeare and the Victorians describes and analyzes what particular writers, readers, actors and audiences made of Shakespeare in different fields and forms. It features detailed discussion of the interpretations and applications of Shakespeare by major artists, writers and critics, as well as those less well known, and covers the full scope of the era, from the nostalgia with which Victorians looked back to the Shakespeare of their Romantic predecessors, to the tensions in the very idea of 'Shakespeare' at the start of the new century on which Yeats and Joyce would soon stamp their mark.
Adrian Poole's major new study is the first to present a fully comprehensive view of what Shakespeare meant to the Victorian period as a whole. He examines the Victorian's obsession with Shakespeare, his impact upon the era's consciousness, and the expression of this in their drama, novels and poetry. The book features detailed discussion of the interpretations and applications of Shakespeare by major figures such as Dickens and Hardy, Tennyson and Browning, as well as those less well-known. Adrian Poole's major new study is the first to present a fully comprehensive view of what Shakespeare meant to the Victorian period as a whole. He examines the Victorian's obsession with Shakespeare, his impact upon the era's consciousness, and the expression of this in their drama, novels and poetry. The book features detailed discussion of the interpretations and applications of Shakespeare by major figures such as Dickens and Hardy, Tennyson and Browning, as well as those less well-known.
