Shakespeare and the Romantics (Oxford Shakespeare Topics) Annotated Edition 9780199679119

This book presents the main currents of these exciting but relatively little known engagements with Shakespeare, and through Shakespeare with the theory and practice of criticism, in England, Germany, and France, from the 1760s in Germany to the aftermath of the Romanticism in France. It also discusses Shakespeare in the theatre of the period–realist stagings which prefigure Shakespeare films; adaptations which fitted Shakespeare to contemporary tastes; and bare-stage experiments which foreshadow modes of contemporary theatre. A chapter on scholarship in the period shows Shakespeare as central to modern editing and historical criticism.

Much of the writing discussed is by men and women whose focus is not primarily critical but creative–poetry (Coleridge, Keats, Heine), fiction (Stendhal), drama (Lessing), or all three (Goethe, Hugo), cultural critique (Jameson, de Staël), philosophy (Hamann, Herder), politics (Hazlitt, Guizot), aesthetics (the Schlegel circle), or new original work in other media (Berlioz, Delacroix, Chassériau). It is writing directed to new modes of creating as well as new modes of understanding.