Shakespeare and modern culture

As in her other recent offerings, especially Shakespeare after All (CH, May'05, 42-5106), Garber (Harvard) employs Shakespeare as a lens through which to view contemporary culture. The author situates ten plays against the backdrop of the 20th century, wrestling with a variety of topics in chapters with such titles as "The Tempest and the Conundrum of Man" and "Othello and the Persistence of Difference" in order to demonstrate her premise that "Shakespeare makes modern culture and that modern culture makes Shakespeare." Despite some clever associations and interesting historical pairings, the volume offers little new about Shakespeare. With regard to contemporary culture, the book reads like an orthodox articulation of the leftist academic pieties that constitute the sum of almost all humanistic discussion in today's colleges and universities. For more than two decades, college professors have consciously subsumed the study of early-modern literary texts into an exercise in contemporary ideology. This book is no different, although one can perhaps credit Garber with going further than most in foregrounding the primary purpose of her narrative. Providing interesting insights into the mind and approach of the contemporary scholar, this book may interest the general audience for which Garner intended it. It will not be useful in academic collections. Summing Up: Not recommended. D. Pesta University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

This is not about Shakespeare in modern culture. It is a wide-ranging foray into Shakespeare and into modern culture. Shakespeare, Garber argues, makes modern culture, while modern remakings of Shakespeare, in turn, remake the Bard, and not only through the theater. Therapists use Freudian understandings of Shakespeare to help clients navigate their lives. Politicians compare their careers to those of Will's imagined kings. Ad writers play with language from the plays (who can resist This is the winter of our discount tents?). A less-eloquent writer might make a tangle of factoids and theories out of all the threads in one chapter, prison theater, postcolonialism, evolution, magic, and more Garber masterfully weaves together. Yet the thrills she affords mostly lie in the details: The Merchant of Venice was performed in New York with Shylock's lines in Yiddish. Karl Marx knew Shakespeare almost as well as Freud did. New York once rioted over the best acting in Macbeth. Laura Bush assigned George W. a list of plays he should read.--Monaghan, Patricia Copyright 2008 Booklist

The pervasive influence of Shakespeare on modern culture cannot be overstated. Garber argues that we should not merely consider how culture has appropriated and interpreted Shakespeare but how Shakespeare "writes" the modern. Thus, for instance, Freud does not so much interpret Hamlet as interpret himself through Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet define our conception of lovers, and Prospero, Caliban, and Ariel inscribe the colonial and postcolonial discourse. Garber (William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and American Literature and Language, Harvard Univ.) has written extensively on Shakespeare, including the award-winning Shakespeare After All. She covers ten major plays, examining their role in literature, performance, film, politics, theory, and popular culture. Though Garber assumes familiarity with the plays and some theoretical sophistication, her treatment is thorough, witty, fluent, and accessible. An important contribution for both the serious reader and the specialist; recommended for public and academic libraries.-T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

"This is not about Shakespeare in modern culture. It is a wide-ranging foray into Shakespeare and into modern culture. Shakespeare, Garber argues, makes modern culture, while modern remakings of Shakespeare, in turn, remake the Bard, and not only through the theater. Therapists use Freudian understandings of Shakespeare to help clients navigate their lives. Politicians compare their careers to those of Will s imagined kings. Ad writers play with language from the plays (who can resist This is the winter of our discount tents?). A less-eloquent writer might make a tangle of factoids and theories out of all the threads—in one chapter, prison theater, postcolonialism, evolution, magic, and more—Garber masterfully weaves together. Yet the thrills she affords mostly lie in the details: The Merchant of Venice was performed in New York with Shylock s lines in Yiddish. Karl Marx knew Shakespeare almost as well as Freud did. New York once rioted over the best acting in Macbeth. Laura Bush assigned George W. a list of plays he should read." Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

The pervasive influence of Shakespeare on modern culture cannot be overstated. Garber argues that we should not merely consider how culture has appropriated and interpreted Shakespeare but how Shakespeare "writes" the modern. Thus, for instance, Freud does not so much interpret Hamlet as interpret himself through Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet define our conception of lovers, and Prospero, Caliban, and Ariel inscribe the colonial and postcolonial discourse. Garber (William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and American Literature and Language, Harvard Univ.) has written extensively on Shakespeare, including the award-winning Shakespeare After All. She covers ten major plays, examining their role in literature, performance, film, politics, theory, and popular culture. Though Garber assumes familiarity with the plays and some theoretical sophistication, her treatment is thorough, witty, fluent, and accessible. An important contribution for both the serious reader and the specialist; recommended for public and academic libraries.—T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah