Abstract
Surveying recent interest in the various intersections of Shakespeare and the gothic, this chapter considers three aspects of these points of convergence. It considers the role played by Shakespeare in the early gothic of writers such as Walpole and Radcliffe, and in the course of this discussion, also considers Shakespeare’s role in mid-eighteenth-century nationalist political debates, in which the idea of a ‘gothic’ heritage developed at around the same time as Bardology: Shakespeare was appropriated as a ‘gothic’ writer anachronistically by Whig historians. The chapter then gives attention to the topic and imagery in Shakespeare’s theatre which came to fascinate later writers of the gothic, including his representation of the supernatural and ‘unnatural’, dreams, ghosts and madness. The chapter briefly concludes by considering some of the ways in which Shakespeare would be appropriated by later writers of the gothic tradition in the nineteenth century and beyond.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Bate, Jonathan, ‘Introduction’, in William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, ed. Jonathan Bate (London, Bloomsbury, 2015), 1–121.
Boyiopoulos, Kostas, ‘Simulation in The Picture of Dorian Gray: Echoing Hamlet, Anticipating Baudrillard, and the Comparative’, Comparative Critical Studies vol. 11, issue 1 (2014), 7–27.
Burwick, Frederick, ‘Afterword: Shakespearean Gothic’, in Shakespearean Gothic, ed. Christy Desmet and Anne Williams (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2009), 240–56.
Byron, Lord George Gordon, The Major Works, ed. Jerome J. McGann (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008).
Clery, Emma, The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762–1800 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness and Other Tales, ed. Cedric Watts (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008).
Craig, Steven, ‘Shakespeare among the Goths’, in Gothic Shakespeares, ed. John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (London, Routledge, 2008), 42–59.
Derrida, Jacques, Spectres of Marx, trans. Peggy Kamuf (London, Routledge, 1994).
Desmet, Christy, ‘Remembering Ophelia: Ellen Terry and the Shakespearizing of Dracula’, in Shakespearean Gothic, ed. Christy Desmet and Anne Williams (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2009), 198–216.
———, Shakespearean Gothic (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2009).
Dickens, Charles, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, ed. Margaret Cardwell (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009).
Dobson, Michael, The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaption and Authorship, 1660–1769 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992).
Drakakis, John, and Dale Townshend, eds., Gothic Shakespeares (London, Routledge, 2008).
Freud, Sigmund, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Anna Freud, 18 vols (London, Imago, 1940–1952).
———, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey, 24 vols (London, Vintage, 2001).
George, Sam, ‘Shakespeare’s Irish Werewolves’, https://www.opengravesopenminds.com/critical-thoughts/shakespeares-irish-werewolves/.
Gibson, Marion, ed., Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550–1750 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2003).
Guenther, Genevieve, ‘Why Devils Came When Faustus Called Them’, Modern Philology vol. 109, issue 1 (2011), 46–70.
Hirsch, Brett D., ‘An Italian Werewolf in London: Lycanthropy and The Duchess of Malfi’, Early Modern Literary Studies vol. 11, issue 2 (2005), 1–43.
Hogle, Jerrold E., ‘Afterword: The “grounds” of the Shakespeare-Gothic Relationship’, in Gothic Shakespeares, ed. John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (London, Routledge, 2008), 201–20.
James, Heather, Shakespeare’s Troy: Drama, Politics, and the Translation of Empire (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Jones, Gwilym, Shakespeare’s Storms (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2015).
Kant, Immanuel, ‘An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?’, in Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), 11–22.
Lacan, Jacques, ‘Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in Hamlet’, trans. James Hulbert, Yale French Studies vol. 55/56 (1977), 11–52.
———, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, trans. Alan Sheridan (London, Routledge, 2018).
Marlowe, Christopher, Doctor Faustus: A- and B- texts, ed. David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1993).
Montagu, Elizabeth, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear (London, J. Dodsley, 1769). Accessed online through ECCO.
Normand, Lawrence, and Gareth Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North Berwick Witches (Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2000).
Norton, Rictor, ‘Ann Radcliffe, “The Shakespeare of Romance Writers”’, in Shakespearean Gothic, ed. Christy Desmet and Anne Williams (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2009), 37–59.
Prince, Kathryn, ‘Shakespeare and English Nationalism’, in Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Fiona Ritchie and Peter Sabor (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012), 277–94.
Prynne, William, Histrio-mastix The players scourge, or, actors tragædie (London, 1633). Accessed online through EEBO.
Radcliffe, Ann, ‘On the Supernatural in Poetry’, in The Italian, ed. Nick Groom (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017), 395–406.
Sawyer, Robert, ‘Mary Shelley and Shakespeare: Monstrous Creations’, South Atlantic Review vol. 72, issue 2 (2007), 15–31.
Shakespeare, William, As You Like It, ed. Juliet Dusinberre (London, Bloomsbury, 2009).
———, Coriolanus, ed. Peter Holland (London, Bloomsbury, 2013).
———, Hamlet, ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (London, Bloomsbury, 2016).
———, Julius Caesar, ed. David Daniell (London, Bloomsbury, 2014).
———, King Henry VI, Part 1, ed. David Scott Kastan (London, Thomson, 2002).
———, King Henry VI, Part 2, ed. James C. Bulman (London, Bloomsbury, 2016).
———, King Henry VI, Part 3, ed. John D. Cox and Eric Rasmussen (London, Methuen, 2001).
———, King Lear, ed. R.A. Foakes (London, Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd., 1997).
———, King Richard III, ed. James R. Siemon (London, Bloomsbury, 2013).
———, Macbeth, ed. Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason (London, Bloomsbury, 2015).
———, Titus Andronicus, ed. Jonathan Bate (London, Bloomsbury, 2015).
Slotkin, Joel Elliot, ‘Honeyed Toads: Sinister Aesthetics in Shakespeare’s “Richard III”’, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies vol. 7, issue 1 (2007), 5–32.
Stewart, James, Daemonologie in Forme of a Dialogue (Edinburgh, Robert Walde, 1597). Accessed online through EEBO.
Tambling, Jeremy, ‘Levinas and Macbeth’s “Strange Images of Death”’, Essays in Criticism vol. 54, issue 4 (2004), 351–72, 364–65.
Thomson, Leslie, ‘The Meaning of Thunder and Lightning: Stage Directions and Audience Expectations’, Early Theatre vol. 2 (1999), 11–24.
Townshend, Dale, ‘Gothic and the ghost of Hamlet’, in Gothic Shakespeares, ed. John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (London, Routledge, 2008), 60–97.
———, ‘Gothic Shakespeare’, in A New Companion to the Gothic, ed. David Punter (London, Blackwell, 2012), 38–63.
Walpole, Horace, The Castle of Otranto, ed. Nick Groom (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014).
Whiteley, Giles, ‘Shakespeare’s Dark Ecologies: Rethinking the Environment in Macbeth and King Lear’, in Shakespeare’s Things, ed. Brett Gamboa and Lawrence Switzky (London, Routledge, 2019), 134–49.
Williams, Anne, ‘Reading Walpole Reading Shakespeare’, in Shakespearean Gothic, ed. Christy Desmet and Anne Williams (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2009), 13–36.
———, and Christy Desmet, ‘Introduction’, in Shakespearean Gothic, ed. Christy Desmet and Anne Williams (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2009), 1–10.
Wilson, Richard, Shakespeare in French Theory: King of Shadows (London, Routledge, 2007).
Wells, Stanley, and Gary Taylor, William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion (New York: Norton, 1997).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Whiteley, G. (2021). Shakespeare, Influence and Appropriation. In: Bloom, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Gothic Origins. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84562-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84562-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-84561-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-84562-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)