Poetry

In this book of the poetics of influence, the indebtedness of Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake to a common source, namely the Bible, becomes a powerful tool for displaying three fundamentally different poetic options as well as three different ways of dealing with a conflict central to western culture. In fresh and original discussions of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and King Lear, the author discerns what he terms the metagon: not the struggle between the characters on the stage, but a struggle for the control of the play between biblical and non-biblical modes of imagining. Milton seems more single-minded in his reliance on biblical sources, yet from his analysis of Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, the author concludes that there are unresolved contradictions, both aesthetic and theological, which threaten the coherence and balance of these poems as well. Blake in his turn perceived these contradictions in the work of his predecessors, condemning both Shakespeare and Milton for allowing their writing to be curbed by Greek and Latin models and claiming for himself a more authentic inspiration — that of ‘the Sublime of the Bible’. But Blake’s marvellous achievements in the sublime mode, as for instance in his Illustrations to Job, often reverse the direction of his biblical source, replacing dialogue with monologue.

The century between the Restoration and David Garrick's Stratford Jubilee saw Shakespeare's promotion from the status of archaic, rustic playwright to that of England's timeless Bard, and with it the complete transformation of the ways in which his plays were staged, published, and read. The first question is: why Shakespeare? Secondly, what different interests did this process serve? This book studies the Restoration and 18th century's revisions and revaluations, and it considers the period's much reviled stage adaptations in the context of profound cultural changes. Drawing on a wide range of evidence — including engravings, prompt-books, diaries, statuary, and previously unpublished poems (among them traces of the hitherto mysterious Shakespeare Ladies' Club) — the book examines how and why Shakespeare was retrospectively claimed as both a respectable Enlightenment author and a crucial and contested symbol of British national identity. It shows in particular how the deification of Shakespeare co-existed with and even demanded the drastic and sometimes bizarre rewriting of his plays for which the period is notorious. The book provides, through engaging and informative analysis, the definitive account of the theatre's role in establishing Shakespeare as Britain's National Poet.