Shakespeare And The Victorians

This study examines the Victorians' obsession with Shakespeare, his impact upon the era's consciousness, and the expression of this in their drama, novels and poetry.

The text describes and analyses what particular writers, readers, visual artists, actors and audiences made of Shakespeare in different fields and forms, featuring detailed discussion of the interpretations and applications of Shakespeare by major artists, writers and critics, as well as those less well known.Covering almost an entire century, the introductory chapter points to the nostalgia with which Victorians looked back to the Shakespeare of their Romantic predecessors, while the epilogue focuses on the tensions in the very idea of "Shakespeare" at the start of the century on which Yeats and Joyce would soon stamp their mark.