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Shakespeare in America
This book traces Shakespeare's contributions to America's cultural history from the colonial era to the present, with substantial attention to theatre history, publishing history, and criticism.
It identifies four broad themes that distinguish Shakespeare in the United States from the dramatist's reception in other countries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Americans in search of self-improvement took a utilitarian approach to the plays, mining them for moral insights and everyday wisdom; beginning in the nineteenth century, American entrepreneurs collected, edited, and adapted Shakespeare for their own pleasure and profit; while America's public schools and theatre practitioners sought to make the works widely accessible; and throughout American history, Americans have had fun with Shakespeare in spoofs, parodies, and other appropriations and the collection of Shakespeare kitsch.
Shakespeare in America also examines America's evolving awareness of Shakespeare, initially through the importation of his writings in the early eighteenth century, the staging a few decades later of English adaptations of the plays, and in the nineteenth century and beyond, through the promotion of Shakespeare and his works at Lyceums, Chautauquas, Shakespeare Clubs (both scholarly men's associations and more socially-oriented women's clubs), and America's literary 'renaissance' as championed by Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman, and others. The nineteenth century also witnessed growing attention to Shakespeare in schools, especially in William H McGuffey's Readers, and later in colleges, while simultaneously American familiarity with Shakespeare encouraged burlesques on stage, including the popular 'black' minstrel shows of the 1840s through 1870s.
The twentieth century witnessed new organizations for promoting Shakespeare, such as the Shakespeare Association of America, and new venues for amateur and professional performances, such as Shakespeare summer festivals beginning in the 1930s and still going strong; and in new media for enjoying Shakespeare, such as feature films, Broadway musicals, and, toward the end of the twentieth century, radical adaptations of the plays on stage, on film, and in fiction, often aimed at persuading American youth that Shakespeare speaks to them. The story of Shakespeare in America is ever-changing.
It identifies four broad themes that distinguish Shakespeare in the United States from the dramatist's reception in other countries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Americans in search of self-improvement took a utilitarian approach to the plays, mining them for moral insights and everyday wisdom; beginning in the nineteenth century, American entrepreneurs collected, edited, and adapted Shakespeare for their own pleasure and profit; while America's public schools and theatre practitioners sought to make the works widely accessible; and throughout American history, Americans have had fun with Shakespeare in spoofs, parodies, and other appropriations and the collection of Shakespeare kitsch.
Shakespeare in America also examines America's evolving awareness of Shakespeare, initially through the importation of his writings in the early eighteenth century, the staging a few decades later of English adaptations of the plays, and in the nineteenth century and beyond, through the promotion of Shakespeare and his works at Lyceums, Chautauquas, Shakespeare Clubs (both scholarly men's associations and more socially-oriented women's clubs), and America's literary 'renaissance' as championed by Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman, and others. The nineteenth century also witnessed growing attention to Shakespeare in schools, especially in William H McGuffey's Readers, and later in colleges, while simultaneously American familiarity with Shakespeare encouraged burlesques on stage, including the popular 'black' minstrel shows of the 1840s through 1870s.
The twentieth century witnessed new organizations for promoting Shakespeare, such as the Shakespeare Association of America, and new venues for amateur and professional performances, such as Shakespeare summer festivals beginning in the 1930s and still going strong; and in new media for enjoying Shakespeare, such as feature films, Broadway musicals, and, toward the end of the twentieth century, radical adaptations of the plays on stage, on film, and in fiction, often aimed at persuading American youth that Shakespeare speaks to them. The story of Shakespeare in America is ever-changing.
- GenresShakespeareNonfiction
240 pages, Paperback
First published May 4, 2012
21 people want to read
About the author
Alden T. Vaughan
37 books7 followersAlden Vaughan has been an Affiliate Professor at Clark since 2002, and since 1994 a Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, where he taught for 33 years. His research examines British America in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, especially the interaction of Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 15, 2015
I was expecting this book to actually go into detail on the various Shakespeare plays that influenced and impacted American politics and culture. Instead,I get historical facts about the various theatrical Shakespearean companies and its male and female actors that became popular during the 19th century for portraying certain characters, as well as the battle that emerged between American and British actors in their effort to gain the love of American audiences. The narrative of this novel is like reading a really boring science or history book that talks bout facts rather than actually going into depth and analyzing the Shakespearean plays.
On the other hand, I went to the library and checked out a book titled "Shakespeare and the American Nation" and "Repositioning Shakespeare" that proved more satisfying then this little novel. I especially liked the former latter because it approached Shakespeare's "The Tempest" from a colonial perspective.
On the other hand, I went to the library and checked out a book titled "Shakespeare and the American Nation" and "Repositioning Shakespeare" that proved more satisfying then this little novel. I especially liked the former latter because it approached Shakespeare's "The Tempest" from a colonial perspective.
November 25, 2018
Shakespeare in America is an engaging but inconsistent book that wanes once it pivots to contemporary iterations of Shakespeare in America. The opening chapters effectively trace Shakespeare's influence in the late 17th and the entirety of the 18th century. According to Vaughan and Vaughan, Shakespeare was a totem of moral excellence even as colonies like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts expressed skepticism toward actors and theaters. Virginia, interestingly enough, was the first colony "to respond favorably to actors and to the construction of a theater" (10). Shakespeare's immunity to this contradiction is not surprising since "Reading Shakespeare, rather than watching a performance, avoided the theatrical world's corruptions" (12). Thanks then in no small part to the initial supremacy of reading Shakespeare to staging him, the colonial bookselling market was a "hopeful step toward giving Shakespeare's works an American affinity" (15).
As America emerged from the Revolutionary War, so did Shakespeare as a signifier of not just aesthetic quality and moral guidance, but liberatory ideology as well. According to Vaughan and Vaughan, the theater functioned as an ideological tool because "Both sides recognized the theater's potential for propaganda," but Shakespeare was uniquely positioned as a source for transmission regardless of the propagandist message because of "his perceived neutrality" (29). Richard III, for example, was "played by both parties to the conflict despite the centrality of its malignant monarch" (29).
The second chapter titled "Making Shakespeare American" explores the ways theatrical sensibilities shaped Shakespeare and conversely, the ways Shakespeare shaped theatrical sensibilities in the 19th century. As a "transatlantic rivalry" percolated, visiting English actors were forced to "conform to American notions of theatrical propriety or endure incredibly crude abuse, both verbal and physical" (42). This, of course, culminated in the Astor Place Riot of 1849, a dispute over competing performances of Macbeth that led to the deaths of a few dozen people while injuring over 100. As many books of this sort suggest, "Competing performances of Shakespearian roles became a microcosm of the Anglo-American feud" (43).
Chapter 3, "Shakespeare and American Expansion," is a clever chapter that explores editing and printing practices of Shakespeare. For example, William H. and Alexander H. McGuffey's Readers became a national sensation for its educational utility. Each edition featured selections from a small handful of authors, but Shakespeare featured most prominently. Despite the reverence the McGuffey brothers held for Shakespeare, their editing practices were not, however, perfect. According to Vaughan and Vaughan, "Passages from The Merchant of Venice and Othello, were condensed and amended to reflect the McGuffey brothers'--and presumably, many white middle-class Americans'--social biases" (83). Their Merchant, for example, has, "Portia's crucial contribution to the trial...usurped by a male 'Judge,' who combines her role and the Duke's" (83). Therefore, many "young Americans encountered Shakespeare's passages not as he had written them but as the McGuffeys wished he had" (84). This suggests that while we may think of Shakespeare as a neutral arbiter, those who deploy him whether on page or stage, do not.
From here, Shakespeare in America becomes, at times, a lethargic hodge-podge of Shakespeariana. This, I suppose, is not entirely the authors' fault. In the late 20th and early 21st century, Shakespeare became kitsch, and as they suggest in the closing chapter, "The popularity of Shakespeare kitsch implies a fourth theme running through America's relationship with the poet: having fun" (197). The decoupling of Shakespeare from the hyper-reverent fetishistic is important, but this leaves scholars tasked with writing a pithy, 20-page summary of "Pop Shakespeare" is an unenviable position. There are several smart studies of popular Shakespeare, and while Vaughan and Vaughan do an admirable job, it leaves one wanting more.
To the credit of those involved in the production of this text, the "Further Reading" section is a smart inclusion that acknowledges the limits of this series. On the whole, I like these sorts of books simply for their utility. Shakespeare in America is skillfully written and well researched, but look to the "Further Reading" section for a more thorough treatment of this topic.
As America emerged from the Revolutionary War, so did Shakespeare as a signifier of not just aesthetic quality and moral guidance, but liberatory ideology as well. According to Vaughan and Vaughan, the theater functioned as an ideological tool because "Both sides recognized the theater's potential for propaganda," but Shakespeare was uniquely positioned as a source for transmission regardless of the propagandist message because of "his perceived neutrality" (29). Richard III, for example, was "played by both parties to the conflict despite the centrality of its malignant monarch" (29).
The second chapter titled "Making Shakespeare American" explores the ways theatrical sensibilities shaped Shakespeare and conversely, the ways Shakespeare shaped theatrical sensibilities in the 19th century. As a "transatlantic rivalry" percolated, visiting English actors were forced to "conform to American notions of theatrical propriety or endure incredibly crude abuse, both verbal and physical" (42). This, of course, culminated in the Astor Place Riot of 1849, a dispute over competing performances of Macbeth that led to the deaths of a few dozen people while injuring over 100. As many books of this sort suggest, "Competing performances of Shakespearian roles became a microcosm of the Anglo-American feud" (43).
Chapter 3, "Shakespeare and American Expansion," is a clever chapter that explores editing and printing practices of Shakespeare. For example, William H. and Alexander H. McGuffey's Readers became a national sensation for its educational utility. Each edition featured selections from a small handful of authors, but Shakespeare featured most prominently. Despite the reverence the McGuffey brothers held for Shakespeare, their editing practices were not, however, perfect. According to Vaughan and Vaughan, "Passages from The Merchant of Venice and Othello, were condensed and amended to reflect the McGuffey brothers'--and presumably, many white middle-class Americans'--social biases" (83). Their Merchant, for example, has, "Portia's crucial contribution to the trial...usurped by a male 'Judge,' who combines her role and the Duke's" (83). Therefore, many "young Americans encountered Shakespeare's passages not as he had written them but as the McGuffeys wished he had" (84). This suggests that while we may think of Shakespeare as a neutral arbiter, those who deploy him whether on page or stage, do not.
From here, Shakespeare in America becomes, at times, a lethargic hodge-podge of Shakespeariana. This, I suppose, is not entirely the authors' fault. In the late 20th and early 21st century, Shakespeare became kitsch, and as they suggest in the closing chapter, "The popularity of Shakespeare kitsch implies a fourth theme running through America's relationship with the poet: having fun" (197). The decoupling of Shakespeare from the hyper-reverent fetishistic is important, but this leaves scholars tasked with writing a pithy, 20-page summary of "Pop Shakespeare" is an unenviable position. There are several smart studies of popular Shakespeare, and while Vaughan and Vaughan do an admirable job, it leaves one wanting more.
To the credit of those involved in the production of this text, the "Further Reading" section is a smart inclusion that acknowledges the limits of this series. On the whole, I like these sorts of books simply for their utility. Shakespeare in America is skillfully written and well researched, but look to the "Further Reading" section for a more thorough treatment of this topic.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews