Cover -- Shakespeare and Appropriation -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Contributors -- General editor's preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction Christy Desmet -- Part 1: Appropriation in theory -- 1. Alas, poor Shakespeare! I knew him well -- 2. Entry on Q -- 3. Romancing the Bard -- 4. Moor or less? The surveillance of Othello, Calcutta 1848 -- Part 2: Appropriation in practice -- 5. Remembering King Lear in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres -- 6. Signifyin' on The Tempest in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day -- 7. Accommodating the virago: Nineteenth-century representations of Lady Macbeth -- 8. The Shakespeareanization of Robert Browning -- 9. The displaced body of desire: Sexuality in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet -- 10. Disney cites Shakespeare: The limits of appropriation -- 11. Afterword: The incredible shrinking Bard -- Further reading -- References -- Index.

The vitality of our culture is still often measured by the status Shakespeare has within it. Contemporary readers and writers continue to exploit Shakespeare's cultural afterlife in a vivid and creative way. This fascinating collection of original essays shows how writers' efforts to imitate, contradict, compete with, and reproduce Shakespeare keep him in the cultural conversation. The essays: * analyze the methods and motives of Shakespearean appropriation * investigate theoretically the return of the repressed author in discussions of Shakespeare's cultural function * put into dialogue theoretical and literary responses to Shakespeare's cultural authority * analyze works ranging from nineteenth century to the present, and genres ranging from poetry and the novel to Disney movies.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.