Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present

by Gary Taylor

Book Overview

As an actor, William Shakespeare reinvented himself almost every day. At the height of his career, he often performed in six different plays on six consecutive days. He stopped reinventing himself when he died on April 23, 1616, but, as Gary Taylor tells us in this bold, provocative, irreverent history of Shakespeare's reputation through the ages, we have been reinventing him ever since.
Taylor, who sparked a worldwide controversy in 1985 by announcing...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195066790
• ISBN13: 9780195066791
• Release Date: March 1991
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A well-written, comprehensive introduction

Taylor's survey of Shakespearean adaptations and performance is engagingly written, filled with little revealing details, and opinionated without being biased. It's certainly NOT a Bard-bashing book, though it's not reverent in its discussions of Shakespeare. It's the place to start if you're interested in a one-volume history of Shakespearean adaptation. The last section of the book, on contemporary Shakespeare and written in an arch tone, isn't as interesting, at least to a non-academic. And one might argue that the book is rather Euro-centric: see Dennis Kennedy's Foreign Shakespeare as a good supplement. Even so, it's an essential book for any person interested in Shakespeare and cultural change. You'll think differently about Shakespeare after reading it.